Research Summary Summer 2021

My research study investigated equitable teaching practices and methods within the Balletic Arts. Using the narratives of studio teachers' perspectives in the field, I inquired the impact of students' engagement explicitly when one amalgamates tools through a socioeconomic lens. Placing attention to a lesson plan I constructed within my Masters of Arts courses through Ohio State, I refined my inquiry to analyze: 

What can the experiences of studio instructors inform us about Balletic practice when teaching a vast demographic of students; how specifically does students' engagement change if one amalgamates tools through diverse socioeconomic lenses? 

Commencing my research through my narrative, I expose how I broadened my demographic of students' participation when abandoning the strict traditional ways of how ballet pedagogy prepared me to instruct. My findings reveal adaptability is paramount. Relinquishing the limitations of a conventional method does not mean one abandons teacher-to-student quality. Yet, ascribing to only one practice method, as was my past experiences following traditional ballet pedagogy, as was the learning experiences of my interviewees, our truths reveal that not always does the historical or conventional ways of doing things translate. Especially amongst a diverse set of emerging dance youths. Knowing how vital adaptability is can be essential to creatively fashion activities that will ultimately not alienate any student wishing to participate in Ballet. 

To understand equitable practices and methods, I engaged in a series of interviews with a focus group of dance educators ranging in levels five, eleven, and twenty years of experience with conservatory, professional, or collegiate backgrounds in Dance to inquire specifically about their experiences in practice. This served to facilitate and understand if and how incorporating socioeconomic factors as a lens can make the Balletic Arts much more equitable. How, if, what, and why specifically do they not amalgamate teaching tools through a socioeconomic lens. Supposing this consideration is instrumental, as it has been in my experience. 

My participants' experience addressing cost within facets of carrying Balletic instruction, most revealing within their responses, provide cost-effective alternatives. Of which dance educators may contemplate as part of ones' teaching practice. The narrative construction of our interviews and follow-up conversation functioned to formulate Le Danse. A type of guide where I identified class issues and how the cost of traditional tools inhibits or has impacted past student engagement. The teacher's openness or reservations to adaptability illuminates how ballet pedagogy may lack preparation for teaching the Balletic Arts much more effectively in the 21st century. Thus, I recommended Ballet teacher preparation integrate much more multicultural perspectives/literature to bring forth the opportunity to incorporate the appropriate changes to teaching the Classical Performing Arts more equitably. 

 My research comes from a place of passion—passion for the art form and means to enhance my teaching to serve my students much more wholly. It is vital to represent racial and ethnic diversity not seen in original classical works. So too, acknowledge socioeconomic differences as part of the conversation of diversity that may aid to address class issues in dance education. That may be accounted for by the cost of the traditional tools of practice or performance.