Linda Ashley

In Untangling intersections of diverse indigenous heritages in dance education: Echoes, whispers and erosion in the creases, Linda Ashley examines the intersections that arise when Western dance education engages with dances from diverse indigenous heritages. Ideologically, this pedagogy embraces a sense of altruism where the individual learner’s w...

In this article, contesting the belief that dance is a universal, nonverbal language, I consider the different dance languages used by indigenous contemporary dancers to express their worldviews. I also explore, how as dance languages intertwine with or run parallel to verbal languages, performances result in ‘dancing in different tongues’. Setting...

Free access on http://dra.ac.nz/index.php/DRA/issue/current In this article, drawing on data that I collected from teachers during a doctorate inquiry completed in New Zealand in 2010, I explore critically reflexive perspectives that could empower teachers to implement culturally pluralist dance education. Using the imagery of a single beam of lig...

In 2000 teaching about culturally diverse dances from contextual perspectives became an expectation for New Zealand schools with the inaugural The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum. Responding to the new curriculum the author, as dance lecturer for K-12 generalist teachers attending a seven day in-service dance and drama education course, faced th...

As the global vicissitudes of migration unfold so does ethnic difference in the classroom, and this book offers a timely examination of teaching about culturally different dances. At a time when the world of dance is, on the one hand, seemingly becoming more like fusion cookery there is another faction promoting isolation and preservation of tradit...

This article is written in the interests of opening up dialogue and generating debate about the relationship between dance literacy and the role of creativity in dance education. It aims to provoke discussion amongst dance educators who may, or may not, currently value or be aware of, the benefits that graphic movement notation can play in learning...

Today I’m looking at fusion dance and asking: • Whether or how to fuse dances from different cultures • Whether and how we can teach dance contextually when making fusion dance. The latter links the UC and DI strands of our national curriculum in dance, a connection less often made in teaching or thinking about the expectations of the curriculum....

In this article I describe aspects of an ethnographic inquiry in which I investigated the challenges faced by some New Zealand teachers when teaching about culturally different dances, an expectation of the Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2000, 2007). Until relatively recently dance education in New Zealand emphasised Eur...

This paper describes a pilot study, from which an ethnographic inquiry was launched. The purpose of the study was to examine teaching that included contextual understanding of dance, an integral part of The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2000, 2007). A video critique exercise, based on the notion of “educatio...

This paper explores issues and opportunities that can arise in teaching about culturally diverse dances from contextual perspectives, as expected in the dance component of The New Zealand National Curriculum (New Zealand Ministry of Education, Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga, 2007. In focusing specifically on teaching about fusion dance in formal educati...

This study examined the effect of dancing on the functional performance and physical activity levels of 45 retirement village residents participating in either a control (n = 13), Once a Week (n = 18) or Twice a Week (n = 14) dance group for 12 weeks. Changes in functional performance were assessed by three functional tests (30 s bicep curl, Timed...

Issues surrounding what works best in balancing autonomous exploration of dance making with provision of learning about choreographic process for university dance students are explored in this paper. Two personal narrative perspectives are provided. A lecturer reflects on what works best in structuring learning that encourages students to explore d...

Dancing is a mode of physical activity that may allow older adults to improve their physical function, health, and well-being. However, no reviews on the physical benefits of dancing for healthy older adults have been published in the scientific literature. Using relevant databases and keywords, 15 training and 3 cross-sectional studies that met th...

My paper presents findings from an action research project focussing on a series of creative dance workshops. The key question of this research is; How may the collaborative choreographic process effect the participant's sense of identity as dancer? Theoretical issues that are explored include a philosophical examination of cognition during the cho...

This thesis investigates the concerns, dilemmas and opportunities that teachers associated with teaching culturally diverse dances from contextual perspectives. This topic was identified as timely because of the inclusion of a separate Understanding Dance in Context Strand in The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum (New Zealand Ministry of Education...