Intersecting Dialogues

This presentation reports on the parallel research of two academics involved in building arts partnerships across communities both within and outside traditional academic environments. Their intersecting dialogue (facilitated via digital and personal exchange) revolves around creative pedagogies aimed at embodied development through dance in both formal and informal teaching and learning contexts. 12° North Graduate Dance Company is an innovative Arts Council England funded project supported by local communities to maximise existing and emerging opportunities in participatory arts in the North West of England. Here Karen’s work explores the presence of artistry through visual literacy during the transition from student to autonomous artist, performer and community practitioner, so that graduates can understand the importance of self-perception in relation to a range of arts practices. Methodologies include Nichols documentary dialogue and Dunne’s work on human discourses, which are both formulated in the creative space to increase consciousness. Re-railing this aspect of graduate teaching is critical to her own artistic practice as a curator of these conversations Rosemary’s recent Dean’s Citation for excellence in teaching affirmed her methodological empowering of undergraduate, preservice teachers through experiential privileging of their own movement histories. Rosemary’s latest study of non-dancers’ perceptions of themselves as dancers and teachers of dance in education through visual representation and reflective practice, brings together notions of safe learning environments, mindful practice and importance of relationships in the creative process. In their recent collaboration at Monash University, Karen and Rosemary worked towards unpacking qualitative research approaches to enhance the intersection of ideas, observations and discursive conversations to reveal an exciting opportunity to extend creativity and community values into pedagogies of practice.