Through the Lens of Improvisation: Dance Educators Find Voice and Agency through Transformative Conversations

Abstract

Practitioner Exchanges (PXs) at Luna Dance Institute are casual community conversations co-facilitated by dance educators around a topic of dance teaching inquiry. With the physical disconnection of the Covid era, these in-person roundtables shifted to Zoom, and became even more essential in bringing teaching artists together. Educators from all over the world sought out these conversations as a forum for finding their voice and agency, supported by their peers. What made PXs so special and so critical? This article investigates this inquiry through the lens of dance improvisation and presents an emergent phenomenological framework explaining the essential nature of PXs and their transformative impact on teaching artists, their students, and the field of dance education. © 2022 National Dance Education Organization.