Our student post series continues with NYU Dance Education grad student, Hannah Guruianu.

At this time last fall, I was sitting in a chair working full-time (and then some) as an editor at a newspaper in upstate New York, teaching ballet classes on the side at a local studio and community college. I never dreamed I’d be one of about 20 students in the first class of New York University’s new Master of Arts in Dance Education program, which has a concentration in ballet pedagogy. The program is a partnership between NYU and American Ballet Theatre.

This week marked the fourth week of classes during the fall semester and it already seems like we’ve been going to school for months (in the best way possible). Our group, which includes students right out of college to around age 60, is already close-knit. We kind of have to be: We see each other for several hours every day.

We start by taking a technique class at 9 a.m., followed by discussion until noon, Monday through Friday at ABT’s studios. We talk about terminology and learn the details about ABT’s National Training Curriculum. The rest of the afternoon, we’re again together in classes, focusing on music for dance, methods and materials for teaching dance, non-profit management and an introduction to Laban movement theories. (more…)

Out student post series continues with NYU Dance Education Grad Student, Cecly Placenti

An interesting debate arose in my Methods and Materials In Teaching Dance class last week at NYU. It was a topic that seemed to strike chords in quite a few people- the role of dance scholars and the sometimes negative connotations surrounding them. The debate seemed to take a very fixed and separate view of what scholars are, what they do and the purpose they serve in an art form that is physical, immediate and ever changing.

The argument that dance scholars sit around and write stuffy books that have little to do with teaching or learning the art of dance is an argument that needs to be examined. Is a scholar not a thinker, a person hungry for knowledge that will further evolve their area of study? If dance is going to survive and grow as an art form, I think the need for the dancer/scholar is strong. If dance in our culture is going to take root as a popular and accessible art, we need to make dance education a part of every students academic training, and in order to do this we need scholars to write, study and transmit ideas. It is not enough for dance to survive and prosper through performance alone. The educational resources available to dancers today are great- they should influence the way educators teach and performers perform. Why can’t dancers be scholars and scholars be dancers? Why would a dancer not want to learn as much as possible about their art in its entirety, in order to better transmit what they learn through whatever medium the choose? (more…)