Conceptual Framework

It is important to recognize that dance is an essential tool in the arts for building knowledge and plays a fundamental role in the comprehensive education of children. Dance serves as a backbone of learning, enabling children to have sensitive and spiritual aesthetic experiences (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá & Secretaría Distrital de Integración Social, 2013). The definition of dance can be found in various sources and evolves according to its multiple characteristics and purposes (Iranzo-Domingo & Cañabate Ortiz, 2024). Our goal was not to establish a singular typology of dance but to acknowledge it as a practice that allows individuals to connect with themselves and others through their bodies and movement while also fostering an appreciation for diversity, regardless of technique or purpose.

Second, it was crucial for us to ensure that inclusive dance is no longer viewed as a fragmentary technique or a subfield within the broader realm of dance. For example, Marín Castro (2017) defines it as a dance modality centered on “movement sequences, improvisation guidelines, activities so that people with or without functional diversity can participate, creating homogeneous, heterogeneous or mixed groups” (p. 83). However, understanding it solely as a specific technique could be more exclusive, particularly in contexts like Colombia. We believe that dance is integral to people’s daily lives, materializing into their everyday performative aesthetics and their cultural diversity.

Our proposal for inclusive dance incorporates the contributions of dance therapy (Buck & Snook, 2024), bio dance (Altamirano Quevedo et al., 2021), dance for well-being and mental health, and danceability. All of these approaches view inclusive dance as a methodology for free expression through movement and improvisation, with purposes that are not necessarily artistic. Therefore, we believe it is essential to include and expand the principles of freedom, recognition, encounter, synergy, listening, respect, time, and care—developed within these frameworks—to all dance techniques and purposes, particularly to those techniques focused on children’s education.

Brugarolas Alarcón (2022), the Spanish artist and pedagogue, asserts that bodies of functional diversity, rich in history and meaning, open up dance. For her, the goal is not to “invent dances for different bodies” but to reinvent the space of dance itself (p. 151), so that everyone can experience it, regardless of physical or cognitive characteristics, origins, or beliefs. Ultimately, we are all different and diverse and we need the presence of others. Brugarolas Alarcón’s work provides us with a critical perspective and a community centered vision of inclusive dance.

Based on the perspectives outlined above, our proposal for inclusive dance titled Didáctica de la danza para todos y con todos [Dance Didactics for Everyone and with Everyone], introduces a new paradigm: understanding dance as a meeting space that is not confined to a single modality or technique. Instead, it is seen as a way of arranging bodies and space to create and participate together. The theoretical framework supporting our proposal draws from the work of Ibero-American researchers, such as Avellaneda Ramírez (2024), Blanco-Vega et al. (2022), Feldman and Altieri (2021), and Cedeño Andrade et al. (2024), who have explored dance education. It also incorporates research by North American scholars such as Artpradid (2023), Apelmo (2024), Needham-Beck and Aujla (2020), and Zitomer (2016), all of whom view dance as a medium for students to explore movement, style, and their unique abilities. In Asia, we find a very important contribution to understanding dance and inclusion: “The body itself exists within that space where we relate to others” (Zhou et al., 2019, p. 41); for this reason, dance is an act of resistance and social and personal transformation, as stated in the research of Chakraborty and Sen (2019).

Third, we recognize that inclusive dance requires both pedagogical and didactic reflection. Pedagogy, as we understand it, functions as a philosophy that demands a critical stance, challenging normativity, power dynamics, and established conventions. Inclusive dance emphasized student development through innovative approaches introduced by educators.

Dance is a physical experience that engages the whole person and materializes in movement. For those who participate in dance, it holds meaning and creates opportunities for generating new understandings.

Didactics, as teaching in general, involve careful planning, learning, and teaching strategies, objectives, content, methods, organizational structures, resources, assessment, and elements that are specific to each field of knowledge (Casasola Rivera, 2020). The case of dance teaching or didactics additionally requires analyzing the interplay between knowledge and the dancing practice, as well as the dynamic relationships between students and teachers. Understanding the theoretical-practical nature of dance is crucial, as it serves as the framework for these interactions within the teaching and learning process. In this context, the teacher’s pedagogical process becomes essential, embodying epistemological knowledge, which is activated in the process of designing, applying, and evaluating instruction.

Suitability in Dance Teaching

To define the concept of teaching suitability, which is central to this research, we considered the following questions: What is taught? Who is taught? How is it taught? When is it taught? What, how and when is it assessed? And what are the achievements and difficulties in the teaching-learning process? Teaching suitability, or didactic knowledge, is an active form of knowledge grounded in autonomy and professional experience (de Camilloni et al, 2007). This knowledge allows teachers to interpret the educational context in which they operate, as it directly addresses the foundational questions. Teaching suitability is also understood as didactic content knowledge (Shulman, 1984), which articulates the relationships within the pedagogical process from a theoretical perspective. By reflecting and theorizing about their practice, teachers transform the teaching and learning of dance, fostering a deeper connection between theory and practice.

This text explores alternative approaches to transmitting movements and teaching dance. Its goal is “to promote learning and the educational values of communication, expression, and relationships among equals” (Prada & Fernández, 2021, p. 59). Consequently, specialized dance education is essential to address current trends and challenges in aesthetic expression and experience—whether every day and common or poetic and performative. This type of education demands a diversified perspective that moves beyond being merely “institutionalized” or confined to a rigid curriculum. “It must avoid being overloaded with knowledge devoid of autonomy, disconnected from social practices, and lacking critical reflection” (Ordñez Matute, 2022, p. 253).

The concept of teaching suitability was introduced by mathematicians Godino et al. (2016) in their theory on didactic configurations and mathematics education. According to Godino (2011), “Given certain circumstances (subjects, resources, restrictions…), an ‘expert’ in a specific pedagogy can reason (based on empirically contrasted theoretical results) that certain tasks and modes of interaction in the classroom are preferable to other” (p. 3). We have adapted this concept to the field of dance to examine how its fundamental principles align with the inclusion and acceptance of diversity.

Building on the theoretical review conducted in our research, we have developed the concept of teaching suitability for inclusive dance for everyone and with everyone. This concept refers to the key requirements that define effective teaching in terms of designing and planning dance education. It also establishes the framework for measuring and assessing the pedagogical practice of teachers, while encouraging continuous reflection. Reflection and assessment are grounded in relevance, specifically in the question “what is necessary and essential for teaching dance in this specific context?” Figure 1 shows the relationship between each principle or the teaching suitability for dance education:

Figure 1 - Teaching suitability (principles) for dance. The figure shows relevance as the core of didactic suitability.

One of the stages of our research, validation, enabled us to confirm the relevance and suitability of dance teaching as a fundamental framework for didactic configuration (León Suárez, 2022). Table 1 outlines each principle of suitability (see Figure 1) and Tables 2 to 6 present the guiding questions for teachers. The table serves as a tool for teachers to design their dance laboratories and, after implementing them, it functions as an evaluation matrix.

The tables present the suitability of each action based on its definition, key actions, and guiding questions that teachers should consider for implementation.

Within the framework of didactic suitability, it is essential to consider the relationships and actions in the practice of dance, namely: (i) epistemological, knowing the basic qualities of an experience with diverse corporalities from the social and cultural point of view of the human being as didactic knowledge; (ii) physical corporal, considering the diverse bodies and their expressions according to temporalities, spatialities, and links; (iii) mediational communicative, arranging the accessibility mediations that promote dialogical corporal relationships from the diversity of perceptive, expressive, and communicative characteristics, through improvisation; (iv) affective intellectual, promoting metacognition considering the different ways of learning, understanding, and expressing elements related to the affections as an essential component of the teaching-learning of dance that result in free and spontaneous expression and in the construction of symbols and interpretations that configure designs or staging resulting from individual or collective experiences; (v) sociocultural, which is essential to identify social, cultural, ethical, political, and cultural particularities. Students’ ecological contexts and contexts to consider linguistic mediations, support professionals, time, space, student-teacher, student-student, and student-performer interactions, as well as the norms and routines of the dance specialty, space, rules, and meeting and greeting circles.

Levels and Instruments of Data Analysis

The analysis of the results considered the participation of all stakeholders involved in the research: students, teachers, parents, and researchers. As a result, the different levels of data analysis were defined and are presented in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Levels of data analysis.

The first level focused on the didactic configuration as part of the planning and design of the dance laboratories, in alignment with the previously defined teaching suitability principles (Table 1 and Figure 2). At this level, the planned activities were compared with their actual implementation in the school, examining the interactions between students and teachers, as well as the impacts of the learning outcomes. This analysis was conducted by the teachers who planned and executed the activities. Instruments, such as field diaries and videos, were used to record the process.

At the second level, the suitability, planning, and execution within the natural setting were monitored, along with the subsequent reflection. This monitoring was conducted retrospectively to facilitate the improvement of the teaching proposal and to assess its relevance. This process functioned as a meta-analysis, involving the participation of the researchers, external observers, teachers, and students. Table 7 presents the analysis instrument used.

The most significant events selected by the workshop facilitators, based on the perspective of teaching suitability and didactic configuration.

Contrasting Expected Forms of Dance Practices: Tensions between “Doing the Right Thing and Being Right” and the Dynamics of Power, Transgression, Boundary-Pushing, and Rupture

Lack, error, difficulty, uncertainty, and frustration are integral to the configuration of the teacher-student relationship, contributing to its inherent complexity. To navigate these dynamic effectively, teachers need the following tools: adaptability and intuition. These tools enable workshop facilitators to make decisions, adapt to unexpected or evolving situations, improvise, and even deconstruct traditional didactic designs in order to move beyond rigid or predetermined. However, the effective use of these tools depends on genuine listening and convergence.

Human condition is inherently chaotic and frustrating, yet these same traits make human relationships didactic, loving and pedagogical, grounded both on the possible and the impossible (Neira, 2020). Didactic configurations are constructed in the space between what is planned and what emerges a posteriori. They exist at the intersection of the known and the hypothetical, the foreseen and the uncertain, the stable and the unexpected, the impossible and the problematic, as well as the unwanted (León Suárez, 2022). The following account from one of the workshop facilitators captures an unstoppable moment that illustrates the complexity of conducting suitability. It also highlights the concept of suitability not as a pursuit of perfection, but as a process of perfectibility:

In session 7, I felt a profound disconnection that affected my ability to engage and respond to the group. I was so sad and overwhelmed that the only way to protect my vital energy to care for others was to remove Damián from the class. There is always a first time for such moments, and I believe that these situations emerge from multiple factors. We cannot simplistically reduce the other to a simple explanation or a label, we must question and investigate the broader context. In general, it was a very hard session, full of shocks and blows that revealed my own vulnerability. It became a moment of realization: we demand a lot from children, and yet they might be dealing with complex situations, such as of lack of love, abandonment, racism, or bullying. These vulnerabilities can generate chaotic situations in shared spaces, where they may explode. What can we do when we have to be present, but feel incapable of being there ourselves? (Field diary, workshop facilitator 1, 2024)

Another significant aspect of this analysis is the exploration of boundaries and limits. In one of the sessions, the workshop facilitator played music that invited the students to dance, encouraging the students to follow the rhythm with their feet. Gradually, the children—who had previously been scattered—began to get in position and started tapping their feet. Before continuing with the instructions, the facilitator noticed that one of the children was excelling. She praised him and encouraged the rest of the students to follow his lead. Eventually, most of the children were dancing on the tables, enjoying the freedom of engaging in “unconventional movement.” To manage the children’s desire to transgress and ensure their safety, the teacher told them that no more than two children were allowed to stand on a single table due to the limited space.

The teacher invited the children to express rhythm using different parts of their bodies. The activity was met with great enthusiasm, especially from one boy who incorporated jumps and somersaults into his movements. At one point, another boy threw a piece of paper, prompting a reprimand from the facilitator. Despite this, we observed that the workshop facilitator was patient and willing to listen to the children’s often transgressive and experimental impulses during the activity. We perceived a certain level of controlled tension while navigating the boundaries—literal and metaphorical—between two spaces: the floor and the stacked desks, which had been transformed into a kind of stage. There, epistemological suitability, communicative suitability, and intellectual-affective suitability were all at play. During the activity, the facilitator allowed students to explore actions typically forbidden, balancing freedom with care and attention to safety.

The circulation of power became evident in this interaction: the adult provided certain possibilities to the students, who, in turn, accepted them and embraced the opportunity to play and make them their own, all while remaining on the edge. The boundary created a tension between the contained aggressiveness of the boys, who tested how far they could push the limits, and the assertiveness of the teacher, who explained the reasons behind what was allowed or forbidden, without authoritarianism or without rigid adherence to what was originally planned or designed (Figure 4).

Figure 4 - Children in connection. The figure presents an example of a dance laboratory.

Difficulties in Fostering a Bond in Dance Didactics: Without Time, There is No Continuity; Without Continuity, There is No Listening; Without Listening, There is No Encounter

Dance didactics is a process that encompasses much more than simply transmitting or replicating movements. It constantly encourages teachers to understand their students within their unique contexts and to highlight the multiple facets of their ways of living and being. This includes recognizing their interests, motivations, ways of communicating, and relating to each other. As one of the students supporting the workshops mentioned in her field diary:

What about the environment? Well, before generating movement, dance experiences foster a connection with expression, freedom, learning, and self-identification. These elements are connected to those characteristics that define what children are, know, and do in a given context, space, or environment (Field diary, student, 2024).

These elements are crucial during the first encounter in the dance workshops, but they must be reinforced with each session to consolidate a strong bond between teachers and students, one that allows all possibilities and interactions to flourish. However, the development of these workshops revealed that these elements can fluctuate and be influenced by external factors. For instance, when there is no time, disposition, continuity, or listening, it impacts the bond and the encounter. This impact is not only observed in the students’ inability to perform the movements perfectly or the teacher’s inability to fully execute the plan, but it also manifests in a range of other developments that can be perceived in the students. As one of the workshop facilitators reflected:

Another important aspect I consider is listening. We aim for a listening that is attentive, active, and present at the beginning, during, and at the end of each workshop. This listening goes beyond what is said, it includes everything we can read from the group—their actions, stillness, reactions, words, and even their silences. This listening not only guides our evaluation, but encourages us to express how we feel when we arrive at each session and how we feel after finishing it, in a space in which we can, of course, be heard (Field diary, workshop facilitator 2, 2024).

As the workshop facilitator rightly points out, listening is the fundamental pillar that enables building an authentic relationship with the children. This goes beyond mere instructional follow-up; it is essential for didactic development and mediation. This relationship must be grounded on the recognition of the other and foster an inclusive environment, where the ability to inhabit the body plays a preeminent role. Listening, then, involves being attentive to words, actions, movements, silences, and sensations—not just as validation of what is correct, but as recognition of opportunities for free expression. The lack of inclusive listening can sometimes create barriers for children, as they are often immersed in the formal structure of education, where they cannot freely express themselves and be heard. Many times, children feel unable to build, participate effectively, imagine, or express themselves outside the normative framework. They also struggle to relate to others or break stereotypes about bodies and movement. At this point, the different types of suitability intertwine to generate a structure or an arrangement that supports dance actions, which are not governed by a hierarchical order. Instead, they exist within an experiential space constructed by students and teachers as a space for physical, corporeal, and spiritual encounters through movement.