Skip to main content

A New Kind of Learning: Somatics, Dance Improvisation and Transdisciplinarity

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Transdisciplinary Higher Education

Abstract

Through this chapter I seek to elaborate how somatic and improvised movement practices might be refigured to promote transdisciplinary learning. I propose an approach to teaching in the university that recognizes the ways in which all thinking dwells in a corporeal space and values the processes of the improvised to foster learners who exhibit characteristics that are key to the knowledge economy. The chapter concludes by offering insights as to how improvised dance can activate the ‘four pillars of learning’ (Delors et al. The treasure within, report to UNESCO, International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO Publishing, Paris, 1996).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adshead Lansdale, J. (2008). Dancing at the doctoral level: Looking back and the move forward between 1975 and 2008. In Entering the Academy, Conversations across the field of Dance Studies (Vol. 28, pp. 8–10). Birmingham, AL: Society of Dance Histeory Scholars.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adshead, J. (1981). The study of dance. London: Dance Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adshead, J., Briginshaw, V., Hodgens, P., & Huxley, M. (1988). Dance analysis: Theory and practice. London: Dance Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, A. (2012). Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Spain, K. (2014). Landscape of the now: A topography of movement improvisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delors, Jacques et al. (1996). The treasure within, report to UNESCO, International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eddy, M. (2009). A brief history of somatic practices and dance historical development of the field of somatic education and its relationship to dance. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 1(1), 5–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischlin, D. (2009). Improvisation and the unnameable: On being instrumental. Editorial, Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation, 5(1): 1–8. Online at: http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/1121/1638

  • Giersdorf, J. R. (2009). Dance studies in the international academy: Genealogy of a disciplinary formation. Dance Research Journal, Summer, 41(1), 23–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hay, D. (1994). Lamb at the Altar: The story of a dance by Deborah Hay. London: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heble, A., & Waterman, E. (2007). Sounds of hope, sounds of change: Improvisation, pedagogy, social justice. Editorial, Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation, 3(2): 1–4. Online: http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/409/620

  • Kamoche, K., Cunha, M. P., & da Cunha, J. V. (2003). Towards a theory of organizational improvisation: Looking beyond the jazz metaphor. Journal of Management Studies, 40(8), 2023–2050.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, G. E. (2007). Improvising tomorrow’s bodies: The politics of transduction. E-misférica, 4(2).Online: http://www.hemi.nyu.edu/journal/4.2/eng/en42_pg_lewis.html

  • Ley, B., Pipek, V., Reuter, C., Wiedenhoefer, T. (2012, May). Supporting improvisation work in inter-organizational crisis management. CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Austin, TX, pp. 1529–1538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Madrazo, E. V., & Rehaag, I. (2013). Epistemological awareness and transdisciplinary attitude: Experiencing the embodied being. In B. Nicolescu & A. Ertas (Eds.), Transdisciplinarity: Theory and practice (pp. 177–190). Atlas Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Midgelow, V. L. (2008). Editorial, entering the academy, in conversations across the field of dance studies. Society of Dance History Scholars, 28, 3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Midgelow, V. L. (2015). Some fleshy thinking: Improvisation and experience. In N. George-Graves (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of dance and theater (pp. 109–122). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Midgelow, V. L. (2017). Improvising dance: A way of going about things, introduction. In V. L. Midgelow (Ed.), Oxford handbook of improvisation in dance. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, R. (2013). Practice as research in the arts: Principles, protocols pedagogies, resistances. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolescu, B. (1999). The transdisciplinary evolution of learning. Symposium on overcoming the underdevelopment of learning at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. Accessed online at: http://basarab-nicolescu.fr/on_line_articles.php

  • Nicolescu, B. (2013). The need for transdisciplinarity in higher education in a globalized world. In B. Nicolescu & A. Ertas (Eds.), Transdisciplinarity: Theory and practice (pp. 17–28). USA: Atlas Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelias, R. J. (2005). Performative writing as scholarship: An apology, an argument, an anecdote. Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, 5(4), 15–424.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, G. (2005). Can improvisation be taught? The International Journal of Art and Design Education, 24(3), 299–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramshaw, S. (2010). The creative life of law: Improvisation, between tradition and suspicion. Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation, 6(1): 1–13. Online: http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/1084/1733

  • Reed, S. (2015). Attending to movement. In S. Whatley, N. Garrett Brown, & K. Alexander (Eds.), Attending to movement: Somatic perspectives on living in this world (pp. 207–218). Axminster, UK: Triarchy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1978). The metaphorical process as cognition, imagination, and feeling. Critical Inquiry, Special Issue on Metaphor, 5(1), 143–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santi, M., & Illetterati, L. (2010). Improvisation between performance and lifeworld. In M. Santi (Ed.), Improvisation: Between technique and spontaneity (pp. 1–6). Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sawyer, K. (2010). Improvisational creativity as a model for effective learning. In M. Santi (Ed.), Improvisation: Between technique and spontaneity (pp. 135–154). Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Threadgold, T. (1996). Everyday life in the academy: Postmodernist feminisms, generic seductions, rewriting and being heard. In C. Luke (Ed.), Feminisms and pedagogies of everyday life. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Todres, L. (2007). Embodied enquiry: Phenomenological touchstones for research, psychotherapy, and spirituality. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vida L. Midgelow .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Midgelow, V.L. (2017). A New Kind of Learning: Somatics, Dance Improvisation and Transdisciplinarity. In: Gibbs, P. (eds) Transdisciplinary Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56185-1_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56185-1_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56184-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56185-1

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics