Authors: Aullora Fekete
Mentors: Karen Jensen
Insitution: Brigham Young University
Implementation of culturally relevant teaching in universities and public schools has increased, but private studios, outnumbering both higher education and public school dance programs, are not keeping pace. Business owners are caught between competing demands making it difficult to invest in professional development programs for their instructors(Risner 2010). This perpetuates implicit bias teaching as instructors fall back on how they were taught in studios based in eurocentered evaluation and ideals furthering the divide for who has accessibility to dance and which dance forms are taught.The following research addresses possible ways private studios can have more access to and receive training for more culturally relevant teaching. Conversation explores how studio vision and clientele demands can be taken into account to create a more inclusive dance culture and the types of training resources already offered along with how they might be implemented. By having an inclusive approach, studio dancers also continue the culturally relevant teaching they received as future dance educators to contribute to a greater dance culture of uplifting and including the marginalized.
Citation:
Doug Risner Ph.D. M. F. A. (2010) Dance Education Matters: Rebuilding Postsecondary Dance
Education for Twenty-First Century Relevance and Resonance, Journal of Dance Education, 10:4, 95-110, DOI:
10.1080/15290824.2010.529761