Dewey, Dance, and Me

The contributions John Dewey made to education are enormous, especially in the performing and visual arts. There may not even be such programs in schools had it not been for Dewey's argument that children need hands on experiences to make their education meaningful, most specifically in art, music, dance, and drama. I think most people are familiar with art and music education, but dance is still an uncharted territory. Some people don't understand what the goal of dance education is, because most people associate the word "dance" with images of ballerinas in point shoes, tap dance virtuosos, or highly technical competitive ballroom dancers. However, most people believe that children have the right to learn music and art in school. The philosophy of dance education comes right out of Dewey: To appreciate, understand, and connect to the subject, students need to experience it. Students in a dance class will learn about creating movement, performing movement, and discussing movement. Most students won't go on to pursue a career in dance, but just like the music and art programs in schools, a dance program gives students an aesthetic experience to complement their academic experiences.
It was said in class today that live music cannot be experienced through a recording. No matter how faithful the technicians were in preserving the accoustics and sound levels while recording, we are ultimately hearing sound through a speaker, and not sound resonating from an instrument. Technology sometimes lulls us into a false sense of accomplishment, that if we advance our technology enough, we won't need to rely on the old fashioned methods. In art, though, a reproduction of a piece can never replace experiencing the original. I felt the need to include dance in this discussion as well, although the implications are the same. A video recording of a dance (or a digital recording, now I suppose) is a usful tool in preserving the staging and the choreography, but it does not replace that moment in time, when the dancers were performing and the audience was watching. Just as music cannot be truly replicated in an audio file, dance cannot be constrained to the confines of a video file. These are the bare bones, the skeleton of the piece. The soul is in the fleeting act of experiencing the performance first hand.