RESEARCH
C ultural diversity in dance education cannot truly be valued in this country without reshaping our infrastructure.~Nyama McCarthy-Brown
To right/write the representations of dance techniques not currently available in the academy, I offer my original theory of “Entercultural Engaged Pedagogy”—rooted in cultural, historical, and sociopolitical contexts relevant to the current climate of the U.S. Inspired by Katherine Dunham’s concept of Intercultural Communication—a method for gaining a universal understanding and acceptance (not tolerance) of others through the body itself and through international performances to diverse audiences—my work urges the much needed cultivation of a comprehensive cultural dance literacy beyond the dominant Eurocentric perspective in the U.S. To achieve this end, I’m committed to a life’s work of investigating and curating best pedagogical practices that promote appropriate mechanisms for the transmission of marginalized dance techniques and styles specific to the written and unwritten histories of the black (culturally othered and without representation) dance aesthetic, already peripherally woven into the fabric of our discipline.
Entercultural Engaged Pedagogy models for students the importance of valuing the depth and breadth of the knowledge that they bring to the learning process, rather than having their movement experiences positioned in a hierarchy of dance courses privileging an ethnocentric perspective. Additionally, my pedagogical model endeavors to decolonize dance pedagogy, while offering epistemological ways of “teaching to transgress,” as well as methods for “education as the practice of freedom” (bell hooks, 1994).
The ongoing development of my general research aids in establishing my recent manuscripts:
- " Rebalancing Dance Curricula Through Repurposing the Black Dance Aesthetic ," published in the Research in Dance Education journal. This study primarily examines why black dance aesthetics have yet to be incorporated adequately within dance departments in higher education. Secondarily, it asks why black dance histories remain peripheral. And thirdly it explores how equitable all-inclusivity can be met via a holistic understanding of dance culture’s Americanization.
- "Traditional White Spaces: Why All-Inclusive Representation Matters," published in the Journal of Dance Education Special Issue, Race in Dance Education. In this featured article I explore why students haven't been expected and required to study curricula beyond the Eurocentric perspective. Additionally, this paper argues for equitable inclusion and representation in curricula and pedagogical practices for the discipline of dance in higher education and explicates why it matters to the discipline’s collective identity. Subsequently, this argument suggests that the racial formation in the history of America’s education system, including dance education, from the early 1900s through the mid-1930s, is a direct result of its ongoing monocultural and ethnocentric paradigm. Understanding how race has contributed to dance’s history and development as a discipline in the academy could offer a resolute path toward a paradigm shift away from its historically ethnocentric model.
