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The Role of Technique in Dance Education: The Example of Tsoying High School, Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2013

Ellen Gerdes
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Abstract

Through questionnaire data, the dance students at Tsoying High School in Taiwan offer an important perspective on dance technique. Engaging with Melanie Bales's concept of the “eclectic” body in American contemporary dance practices, I explore both the historical underpinnings and the students' experience of a Taiwanese curriculum that focuses on ballet, modern dance, and Beijing opera movement. Our conceptions of dance technique and their related pedagogies not only affect the dancer but also affect the integration of dance technique with the rest of the dance field and, subsequently, the role of dance in the greater culture.

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References

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