Speakers
Description
Dance education has often stated that we teach more than just how to move (see for example Catalano & Leonard, 2016; Stinson, 2010). We teach students to engage with others and collaborate; we teach students to approach challenges in creative ways that often has no “right” answer, but only options. Pedagogical practices that embrace soft skills contribute to a student’s post-university readiness for employment and community contribution. Directing our attention to problems, challenges and unforeseen circumstances are the hallmark of critical thinking, because the response needs a process that is not always the simplest and easy response. In other words, in dance education, we teach 21st Century skills, even before they were named as such. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss how dance education needs to incorporate soft skills as the intentional aspect of the curriculum, not the byproduct. Through discussing real world pedagogical experiences from two locations (New Zealand and the United States), we unpack how soft skills materialise in our teaching practice, and how they have been threaded through the curriculum as a meaning-making tool.
CV
Susan Koff, Sarah Foster-Sproull
Susan R. Koff, Clinical Professor, Dance Education Program, NYU/Steinhardt. Past positions: Louisiana State University; Teachers College, Columbia University; University of Denver; Pennsylvania State University; Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Israel. Currently at NYU she is chair of TEC (Teacher Education Council) achieving 7-year accreditation for all certification teacher education programs. Academic and service activities are in the area of Dance Education, USA and internationally. Recently Chair of the Board for Dance and the Child International (daCi), Fulbright Scholarship recipient. Publications: Journal of Dance Education, Research in Dance Education, Childhood Education. Book: Dance Education, A Redefinition Methuen/Bloomsbury, London.
Sarah Foster-Sproull (PhD) is a New Zealand based contemporary choreographer and Senior Lecturer in Dance Studies at the University of Auckland. Sarah’s choreographic research traverses large scale works for up to 100 performers, to intimate performances involving one or two dancers. Sarah was appointed Choreographer in Residence with the Royal New Zealand Ballet since 2020 and was a Resident Fellow of the Centre for Ballet and the Arts at New York University (’21). In 2021 and 2023 she was a session choreographer with the New York Choreographic Institute affiliated with the New York City Ballet. Sarah is the Artistic Director of Foster Group Dance which has been government funded by Creative New Zealand since 2015, and was Creative New Zealand’s Choreographic Fellow for 2017-2019. To date, her choreographic work has been performed in the New Zealand, Singapore, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Fiji. In her career as a performer, Sarah was a founding dancer and choreographer of The New Zealand Dance Company. In addition, Sarah is a distinguished graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance, and has a PhD in creative practice.
