Kinesthetic Dialogue: The “Hands-off” Transmission of Embodied Knowledge through Silent Dance Pedagogy

ABSTRACT

This paper illuminates kinesthesia’s role in ballet training by revealing findings of a study regarding non-tactile corporeal communication termed kinesthetic dialogue. Even before the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) heightened awareness of physical distancing, physical interaction between teacher and student was already increasingly scrutinized. The findings of this study show that during kinesthetic dialogue, tactile communication is non-existent, facilitating collaboration and learning. In a complex pedagogical landscape, where touch is increasingly risky, the conscious application of kinesthetic dialogue during physically distanced studio classes and over online platforms is an effective pedagogical tool. Kinesthetic dialogue becomes central to learning, as teachers may no longer have the option of in-person classes or tactile communication and dancers’ technologically mediated identities established during COVID-19 lockdown will continue to represent them online.

KEYWORDS:

• Ballet
• communication
• dance education
• kinesthesia
• pedagogy

Notes

1. Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova’s (1879–1951) teaching method was developed in the 1920s and with the publication of her book Basic Principles of Classical Ballet in 1939. The school in this study has its own curriculum, but it is based on Vaganova’s syllabus and style.

2. Kinesthetic communication is a one-way transmission from the teacher to the students and can involve gesture or movement. For the purpose of this research, kinesthetic communication is defined as one-way because there were multiple examples during the study in which the teacher communicated information but received no external response from the students. Without student engagement there is no dialogue. However, there is communication on the part of the teacher as they convey the information, regardless of whether it is accepted by the students.

3. Kinesthetic collaboration refers to an experience resulting from a partnership based on empathy affecting both teacher and student. Kinesthetic collaboration is the transfer of knowledge and the adaptation of the advice to the individual body of the student. When the student performs the movement, or uses the information in another situation then they have embodied this communication and the kinesthetic collaboration is extended beyond the immediate studio experience.

4. Neuroscientists first found evidence of the mirror neuron system (MNS), a neural system that matches action and perception in monkeys (Calvo-Merino 2010). Scientists noticed that the neurons in the brain of the monkey fired in the same way when the researcher grasped an object as when the monkey had grasped the object himself, “thus the neurons were triggered by motor actions independent of the agent” (Jola 2010, 208).

5. Five out of seven participants wrote an explanatory response to question 4 and/or 5. The remaining questions were as follows: 1) Are you comfortable when you are being given an individual correction in this class? 2) Have you asked for ballet coaching to grasp a concept, or work on corrections, from this class? 3) Are you happy when you are dancing in this class? The optional answers were: yes, no, and sometimes.

6. Épaulement in Vaganova syllabus is translated as “head and shoulders” and is explained as “the first suggestion of future artistry of classical dancing…” (Vaganova 20). Anna Paskevska (2005, 15) states that épaulement refers to the position of the upper torso and “enhanced the vocabulary by adding variety to the poses and emphasized the natural opposition of the body.”

7. Although Vaganova did not use the term allongé in her book, she does describe the movement of the hand from second to preparatory position saying, “open the hands, taking a deep, quiet, but not exaggerated breath (without lifting the shoulders), turn the hands palms down, and as you exhale, bring them smoothly down…” (Vaganova 47). This is the movement that the teacher termed allongé. In other codified systems of ballet, the term may refer to the extension of the leg en fondu in arabesque.