Centring Choreographic Practice in Dance Learning

This chapter takes a sweeping look at dance education, including investigating the difficulty of defining dance education and learning. The place of choreography in learning dance is examined, through a critical examination of the ways dance is taught in Australia schools. It focuses on the history of dance education in Australia, the impact of the Australian Curriculum, and how this is affecting dance in compulsory schooling and initial teacher education (ITE). This includes a consideration of how dance is framed as a subject in schools, and how choreographic practice informs the ways in which it is taught, including teacher capacity. Multidisciplinary approaches to dance learning and teaching, such as Smith-Autard (The art of dance in education. A&C Black, 2002) ‘Midway Model’ and its contribution to the Australian Curriculum General Capability of ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’, underpin the practice-based skills of dance education. The chapter opening figure demonstrates how choreography can be central to Dance learning.