Making a Difference in Dance is a research project funded by the Finnish Academy and is conducted at the Department of Dance and Theatre Pedagogy of the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. The project leader Soili Hämäläinen and the research team members Eeva Anttila, Teija Löytönen and Leena Rouhiainen work fulltime at the Theatre Academy. The senior scholars Maija Lehtovaara, Ana Sánchez-Colber, Sue Stinson and Helena Wulff participate in the project from their home universities. The project consists of eight subprojects each of which is conducted by one of the team members and takes a specific perspective on the general theme of the project. Some of the projects member-specific research topics are described bellow.

Soili Hämäläinen: Teaching Dance Technique – Ethics, Aesthetics, Maieutics...

Technique classes have an essential role in both educating dancers as well as in the everyday life of professional dance artists. A dance teacher creates and controls the class, corrects and evaluates a student's performance, and gives feedback on it. This activity is central to developing dance skills. However, there are many questions such as authority, expertise and independence that are concerned with feedback and evaluation. According to Michel Foucault (1975), the body is culturally formed and is bound up with power. Social values and practices influence the formation of the body. As a result of the power utilized in dance classes with the interrelated modes of surveillance, discipline and corrections, in them bodies become docile.

This piece of research aims to describe different approaches to teaching and learning dance technique (Foster 1997, Green 2002, Parviainen 2002, Rouhiainen 2003) and to observe how the related bodily practices create moral subjects (Foucault 1998). On the one hand the aim is to scrutinize and illuminate the forms of power which are connected to teaching dance technique and especially giving corrective feedback. On the other hand the aim is to explore the students' responsibility to listen to their bodies and their own authority concerning them.

The research questions are addressed both through theoretical and empirical inquiry. The latter approach is used to focus upon the students' subjective experiences on the feedback during their dance studies. In the analysis of the empirical material the emphasis is on the content of those experiences which are related to the ethical issues concerning evaluation. Utilizing a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach (Max van Manen 1994) in describing and analyzing the students' experiences the aim is to understand the nature and meaning of feedback and evaluation in the training of a dancer's body.

Susan W. Stinson: Ethical Decision-Making among Prospective Dance Educator

This action research project will focus on how students preparing to be dance educators engage in ethical decision-making.  The researcher teaches pre-service dance educators in a state in the USA which requires that individuals understand and agree to abide by a Code of Ethics in order to become a licensed teacher. Based on issues she has faced in education, the researcher has created a series of scenarios corresponding to ethical dilemmas that might be faced by dance educators teaching school-aged young people.  The scenarios involve situations in which two or more ethical imperatives conflict with each other, or situations in which the ethical course of action is not completely clear.  In two university-level dance education courses, the researcher will present the scenarios for small group discussion, and ask students to describe not only what they would do if facing such a situation, but why.  The discussion will be conducted in small groups on-line; the transcripts of the discussion will serve as data for analysis.

In the analysis, the researcher will examine the students' process of ethical decision making revealed through the discussion.  The findings will be analyzed in relation to several different theoretical constructs regarding moral development and ethical decision making, including Kohlberg (1981) and Gilligan (1982), as well as other scholars who speak to issues that arise from the data.  The researcher will then reflect on the implications of the findings for teaching ethics to prospective dance educators.

Eeva Anttila: Is liberatory pedagogy called for in dance education?

The focus of this project will be on expressions and experiences of freedom in the context of learning dance. The study will explore concepts of emancipation, autonomy and freedom and ask, whether or not experiencing freedom in dance education and training bears any significance to dancers/dance students, and if it does, what kind of significance. The purpose, then, is to uncover dancers/dance students aspirations regarding freedom. On the other hand, the study will explore the issue of lack of freedom, i.e., experiences of being limited and controlled when dancing.

The study will be based on body memories. The methodology consists of movement sessions (improvisations related to memories on learning dance) as well as discussions on the movement experience and the original event that triggered the movement. Video-recordings of the sessions will be viewed with the participants for additional discussion and analysis.

The material will be interpreted by using theories of feminist and critical pedagogies (e.g, Freire 1972, Stinson 1998). These theories are based on the idea of human beings as seeking autonomy, authenticity and freedom from authority. These theories have been, however, criticized of failing to facilitate true change in educational practices (Ellsworth 1992, Lather 1992). In all, the study seeks to gain light to the question "Is liberatory pedagogy called for in dance education?"

Teija Löytönen: The moral order of everyday life in dance institutions

When discussing cultural studies, Alasuutari (1995) points out that the everyday life is relatively free of real symbolic interest. Cultural studies thus seem to deal with curiosities, which act like a mirror throwing light on the normal everyday life. In my research on dance institutions, the aim is to look just into this everyday life, which according to my view has a remarkable effect on the lives of dance artists.

I look at dance institutions and the everyday life within them through the tradition of social constructionism (cf. Schutz, 1990/1962; Schutz, and Luckmann, 1973; Schutz 1970, Berger and Luckmann 1998/1966). Thus I see dance institutions as socio-cultural constructions. That is to say that dance institutions are constructions of human conduct and can be maintained only if dance artists continue to reinforce these institutions through their daily routines, rules, values, ways of thinking and acting. By the everyday life in dance institutions I refer just to these daily practices and taken-for-granted knowledge shared by dance artists.

In this article my aim is to concentrate on a specific theme in the taken-for-granted knowledge, namely the moral beliefs or moral order of everyday life in dance institutions. My way of rendering the moral order is through dance artistsÕ stories or narratives. A narrative has all the distinguishing marks of a "good story": an abstract or prologue, an orientation to the time, place and characters, a coherent plot and a coda or evaluative closing remarks that finish the story and place it into a proper moral context. (Labov 1972.) These specific stories, then, are not only innocent descriptions of everyday events in dance institutions, but always include a moral evaluation of the meanings of the events (Saarenheimo 2001, Gergen 1999). By identifying and naming the basic assumptions and distinctions this article hopes to open up dialogue on the ethics of everyday life in dance institutions.

Leena Rouhiainen: Some Current Trends in the Choreographic Practices of Contemporary Dance

This piece of research looks into the choreographic practices of contemporary dance. The roles of the dancer and choreographer have increasingly been referred to as dialogical and the dances created in collaboration as co-authored. The interrelation of the choreographer, the dancer, and the spectator has also been addressed. According to Preston-Dunlop and S‡nchez-Colberg, the complex web of interrelationships in dance practice results from the interrelatedness of a triadic perspective of creation, performance, and reception involved in dance art. They argue that both choreographers and dancers enact the tasks of making, performing, and appreciating dance and point out that this has not been a topic that research on dance has seriously tackled (2002, 13). My doctoral study on the manner in which Finnish freelance dance artists work with dance similarly reveals that dance artists occupy the positions of creator, performer, teacher, and appreciator in a variety of ways (Rouhiainen 2003).

Through discussing these issues with both female and male Finnish contemporary choreographers and dancers, this research looks into how creating choreography is currently practiced. It explores the values, distinctions and norms related to these practices in order to establish an understanding of the morals involved with them and the ethical problems related to the dancerÕs and the choreographerÕs ways of engaging with the choreographic practices. The purpose of the research is to offer insight into the contemporaneous nature of the conditions, conventions, and distinctions related to constructing dances from the perspective of contemporary dance art as it is practiced in Finland.

The theoretical and methodological perspectives framing the interpretation of the interview material relate to ethnomethodology and feminist theories. In general ethnomethodological inquiry springs from an interest to understand how people accomplish their identities, their activities, their settings, and their sense of social order. (Cf. Baker 2002; Gubrium & Holstein 1997, 1994) The feminist theoretical perspective this research is affiliated with is one which attempts to understand the socio-cultural construction of gendered or sexual identity. In the lives of individuals and the activities of social groups gender negotiation or sexual identification are more explicit in relation to certain issues and situations and remain in the background in relation to others. They likewise are not restricted only to the distinctions made between women and men. This study looks into how and in relation to what issues the interviewees in their speech construe gendered positions and relies mainly on Judith ButlerÕs understanding of performativity and the notion that gender and sexual identity are constructed through the culturally informed acts of individual subjects in their everyday lives. (Cf. Butler 1993, 1990)

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