Designing Embodied Education in Dance
Characteristics
of an Embodied Education
The characteristics of embodied education shared here were collectively identified during the DEED network Harvest Meeting in September 2024. These characteristics are regarded as foundational pillars for shaping an embodied education that is coherent and fully integrated, moving beyond fragmented or patchwork approaches. While rooted in dance education, the characteristics are intentionally articulated in a broad manner to ensure their relevance across diverse disciplines.
Holistic
Embodied Education is multidimensional and transdisciplinary. It recognizes the
body-mind-environment as an integrated whole, honoring learning processes as
world-building experiences. Therefore, it applies to dance but also to life itself.
Situated
Embodied Education is rooted in the lived experience of the body (the ability to be in a dynamic sensuous present) in connection with oneself (who I am), one’s surroundings
(what is happening around me and how I act), and the world (what my place is on a global scale). Its approaches are always context-sensitive.
Sustainable
Embodied Education cultivates a caring environment for oneself, one’s surroundings,
and other human and non-human beings. It fosters horizontal relationships that encourage tenderness and “respons-ability” (the ability to respond in solidarity to others, as defined by Donna Haraway).
Cooperative
Embodied Education is inclusive and welcoming to all regardless of the level of practice.
It draws strength from cultural, racial, gender, and other differences. It is communal, fostering mutual support, interaction, and the co-creation of knowledge. It is permeable, nurturing synergistic relationships, both in a physical sense of direct contact and in an emotional and energetic sense (touching and being touched).
Proactive
Embodied Education is purposeful, adaptable, motivational, and positive.
Students, teachers, researchers and educational leaders take responsibility for their own learning and embrace opportunities to share and generate embodied knowledge, while also serving as ambassadors of the embodied paradigm beyond their immediate environment.
Exploratory
Embodied education embraces uncertainty as an opportunity to explore uncharted paths.
It raises questions, takes on challenges, and expands the boundaries of knowledge.
It is experiential, experimental, and reflective (revisiting and analyzing experienced processes). It activates intuition through body-aware-learning and embodied teaching.
It prioritizes processes over product and utilizes multiple tools for learning, creating a
multi-sensory educational experience.
Based on senso-thinking
Embodied Education recognizes the knowledge of the body as full knowledge.
It develops through senso-thinking actions that allow for holistic knowledge production, interconnecting practice with theory, and experience with sense-making. It considers that the relationship between bodily and epistemological approaches deepens and expands meanings. It allows corporeality to unfold by sustaining a somatic rhythm, giving time to the processes for knowledge to emerge.