Vital Entanglements: An Exploration of Collective Effort in the Dance Technique Class

Peers influence each other and learning can be shaped by shared processes. The purpose of this article is to pedagogically explore collective effort in the dance technique studio in a conservatoire setting. This practice-based research flows from the studio and has relevance for all higher arts education contexts. It is developed from the experiences of students and a teacher/researcher in the process of prioritising attentive peer observation as a strategy for shared learning. Qualitative data has been thematically analysed, through a feminist interpretive ethnographic approach, in order to bring insight to the complexity and interdependency of learning. Pedagogical roles have been reconceptualised and the influence of peers is discussed as embodied acts of recognition. Furthermore, the experience of disengagement among peers is reframed as agential dissent and the dance technique class is articulated as a potential model of understanding what it can mean to live well among others.