Project Outline & Rationale
- Halle Mathieson
- Aug 27, 2021
- 3 min read
"Fostering Creativity and Building Community - a Dance Education Podcast"
Through this Practice as Research project, I am interested in investigating how dance artists and educators best articulate creativity. Whether for students, or for their own practice, what do dance practitioners do to safely and effectively cultivate creativity? To explore this question, I will interview four dance educators, chosen for their standing in the dance community, and develop a dance education podcast series which will be housed on my professional website. This will support a sub-question addressing how I articulate my own creativity as an emerging dance educator. Lastly, I would like to explore the idea of building a creative community to disseminate good practice. Can we use virtual resources, such as podcasts and social media, to support practitioners around the world, whether emerging or established?
Main research question: How do dance artists and educators best articulate creativity?
Sub question 1: How do I, as an emerging dance educator in the community, articulate my own creativity?
Sub question 2: How can we use online podcasts, and other virtual resources, as a method to disseminate good practice in creative dance education? Can these resources contribute to a supportive and accessible dance community?
Aims: Investigate how dance educators articulate creativity. Explore online podcasts as a method to disseminate good practice in creative dance education. Question what a supportive and accessible dance community looks like.
Objectives: Conduct relevant research, interview dance educators, explore online modes of communication.
Output: 4 x recorded podcasts, each 20+ minutes in length, drawing together ideas and sharing specifics about creative practice.
Research Methodology
This project will follow a primarily descriptive research design, involving the collection of qualitative data for detailed Hermeneutic analysis. Hermeneutic methodology will be used to analyze transcripts of interviews for podcast series, as “an important goal of this method is to understand (come to know) meaning and to make sense of experience” (Fleming & Vandermause, 2011) and information gleaned from participants will be primarily experiential. Participants will include a sample size of four dance educators, chosen for their good standing in the dance community as well as established professional relationships with supervisor or lead researcher. Participants will provide recorded interview accounts (via Zoom) of their diverse experiences in articulating creativity for the development of podcast episodes, each of which will be 20-40 minutes in length. Podcast series will be housed on lead researcher’s professional website, with consent from participants. Semi-structured interviews will be utilized in podcast episodes, as they provide opportunity for free-flowing conversation and spontaneity, exploring each participant’s individuality and creative practice, whilst still addressing topics in line with research questions.
Ethical Considerations
This project involves human participants and collected data. Intended results will be reported and disseminated via recorded podcast and written research. Semi-structured interviews, taking place via Zoom, will be utilized in the creation of podcast episodes. Participants, or podcast “guests,” will comprise of adult volunteers with whom I have pre-existing professional relationships. Each will be contacted via University of Salford email address, receiving the following documents: Participant Information Sheet, Informed Consent Form, and semi-structured interview topics. Samples of these documents can be found in Appendix, figure 1, and completed consent forms are available upon request. As outlined in the Participant Information Sheet, podcast guests are welcome to withdraw their participation at any point in time. They may also contact lead researcher or supervisor to discuss any special communication and/or accessibility needs.
The podcast episodes will be housed on lead researcher’s website for primarily research purposes, but the series will additionally be aired online and as part of the Dance@Salford postgraduate research festival. Participants will have a chance to listen to their episode and review transcripts prior to publication, thus having the final say in whether their episode is published. Data will be stored on a password-protected and secure laptop. All efforts will be made to abide by General Data Protection Rules. Participants will voluntarily consent to being non-anonymized, as outlined in the Informed Consent Form. They will be listed as contributors on the project.
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References
Vandermause, R. K., & Fleming, S. E. (2011). Philosophical Hermeneutic Interviewing. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10(4), 367-377. doi:10.1177/160940691101000405
Word Count - 670 words
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