Dance Culture and the Curriculum

1. Dance Culture and the Curriculum

2. South Africa: a country of great contradictions Of beauty and ugliness, love and hate, anger and hope, trust and mistrust and A country in a period of exciting, challenging and frightening transformation

3. Background • Political change from minority-led, racially and culturally segregated rule to a majority-led, multicultural democracy • Past ’apartheid’ policies excluded, disempowered and marginalised many, resulting in high levels of illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and social dysfunction.

4. A new democratic government has brought the opportunity for designing a radically new curriculum which includes: Arts and Culture Grade 0 – 9 and Dance Studies Grade 10 – 12

5. Curriculum Planning • Context, considerations, concerns and constraints • Accommodation of local needs (and especially cultural diversity)as well as global needs • Tensions of conflicting economic, political, social, cultural and educational imperatives

6. Context • Transformational Outcomes-Based • Representation from all races, genders and stakeholders • Change in the hidden curriculum from colonially imposed Christian National Education to African Renaissance emphasising“Ubuntu” - humanism = human rights, social justice, equality and democracy

7. Considerations • Redress the past • Promote a culture of human rights and justice • Ensure access, inclusion, equality, multi-culturalism, gender equity • Be sensitive to issues of indigenous knowledge

8. Concerns • Representative writing groups unequal in capacity • Broad participation process slow • Contested terrain, protect turf • Tension between local very different contexts vs national standards • Tension between integrated African approach and Western discipline-specific approach

9. African Arts Integrated Communal Part of daily life Inclusive Western Arts Discipline SpecificCelebrate Individual artistExperts Tension no. 1

10. After decades of colonialism, anything hinting of European imperialism, such as classical music or ballet, was considered suspect.“Excellence” considered a politically incorrect word of exclusion

11. At the same time, the spirit of cultural inclusion required that classical music and ballet not be excluded and that access to these art forms be made available to those who were denied such access in the past.

12. The challenge - to accommodate all cultures • Permeate cultural borders • Challenge cultural assumptions in unique ways. • Acknowledge evolving of cultures

13. African dance purists • Tampering with culture and heritage • Artificial appropriation; superficial application; vandalising the essence of the form • Preserve dances in their original form - remaining true to their origin, function and meaningand as generational transmission of histories and ways of life

14. Ask for permission to use rituals and traditions on stage Traditional Dance

15. A number of imperatives seemed to be in conflict with each other: Social reconstruction emphasising cultural, social, personal goals Economic reconstruction emphasising global competitiveness, high skills and knowledge, job creation Tension 2

16. Hotly debated question What should schools teach? Should it be: about arts and culture? through the arts? or in the arts?

17. Which imperative could we serve? Cultural • Previously the basis for stereotyping, discrimination, prejudice • Should transmit and preserve culture • Promote cultural awareness • Celebrate cultural diversity Political • Advance ideology of the ruling party • Promote nation building

18. Economic Induct into discipline-specific knowledge towards tertiary training & a career? Develop dance literacy to build informed audiences? Personal Nurture and develop creativity, resourcefulness, confidence and self-esteem; promote healing Social Develop social interactive skills – the ability to communicate, share, care, lead, follow, negotiate (very important in a new democracy)

19. Instrumentalist Approach • Arts as a vehicle to teach across the curriculum • Holistic learning, vibrant tool BUT • No progress beyond the scribble/dabble stage • Deny accumulation of economic or cultural capital, or entry into the discipline-specific knowledge hierarchy and thereby reproduce marginalisation. • Violates the right to excellence • Explorations within limited pedestrian vocabulary soon boring • Undermining dance as an respected and autonomous subject worthy of a place in the curriculum

20. Constraints • i)what the country can afford (class sizes 40- 60) • ii) who could teach the learning area and • Iii) how much leeway the timetable would allow.

21. Partial Solutions • Reconciliation - cater for all • Eclectic Arts and Culture curriculum includes the arts separately and together, reaching across cultures • Our curriculum is overloaded

22. New Possibilities • The Dance Studies Grade 10 – 12 Curriculum is structured under the umbrella of choreography and includes a major dance focus and an outcome on indigenous dance.

23. African dance has become part of the formal and non-formal curriculum, influenced by, and influencing, other dance forms Focus on creativity

24. Country’s transition is impacting on everything - interesting times – new world opening up Innovative artists experimenting with fusion Unique emergent SA culture

25. Massive teacher re-training Generate new teacher qualifications Empower the teachers

26. Avoiding ethnic-tribal stereotyping Cross Cultural Dance

27. Conclusion • Richness of debate emerges from ‘difference’ • Culture strongly emphasised throughout the curriculum • Not business as usual • New horizons of expectations – new possibilities • Iterative process of trial, reflection and adaptation • Curriculum needs to be dynamic and responsive

28. Dance is explodingNo limits, no boundaries