Articles & Papers

Dance Dialogues: Creating and Teaching in the Zone of Proximal Development
by Barry Oreck and Jessica Nicoll
Published in: Vygotsky & creativity: A cultural-historical approach to play, meaning-making and the arts. New York: Peter Lang
Download PDF

Quote from Dance Dialogues – Julia, age 15:
“Dance, although you may practice it solely for yourself, is not a private practice at all. Dance is a community with your teacher, your classmates, your audience and especially yourself. If you string all of these people together, and include them into your thought process, your movement will be heard.”

From Dance Dialogues:
Vygotsky said, “The act of artistic creation cannot be taught,” and described helping students “organize the conscious processes in such a way that they generate subconscious processes.”  Arts teachers often focus, however, on demystifying art-making through conscious processes, assigning problems that students solve by isolating manageable parts. Inadvertently, this may avoid the heart of artistic creation and creative play: the finding of interesting problems.

A Creative Approach to Technique
by Jessica Nicoll
Download PDF

From A Creative Approach to Technique:
There are three ways in which I aim to blend artistry and creativity with technical skill while connecting to the spine of the class: (1) choose the focus or theme for the class and then examine how the technical skills to be presented can relate to that focus or theme; (2) find what might make a “technical” exercise dance; and (3) offer challenges that surprise and engage students. These challenges push technique beyond acquisition of skill and into territory that is interesting, fun, and alive.

A Powerful Conversation: Teachers and Artists Collaborate in Performance-Based Assessment
By Barry Oreck
Published in: Teaching Artist Journal, 3 (4), 220-227. 2005
Download PDF

From A Powerful Conversation:
At the heart of the D/M/T TAP assessment is a conversation between artists and teachers about students engaged in an arts experience. To take full advantage of the potential power of that conversation, we need to focus the observers’ attention on specific characteristics, capture and keep track of the information and insights, and officially schedule time for the conversation to happen. Without this kind of serious attention, insights and observations often remain general and are easily forgotten and lost. Attending to our observations with this level of detail helps all of us – teachers, Teaching Artists, students – clarify our intentions and deepen our work.