Recently, a group of dance folks were emailing various questions and issues via the NDEO (national dance education organization) list serve. Larry Lavender posed a question that I want to think about some more:
He wrote:
"How and why making dances is "research" and/or "scholarship" is not very clear to administrators with whom I work, nor to faculty in other departments. I don't think it is very clear within dance, either, to tell you the truth. But as it concerns those outside of dance, I think they are confused as to how making a dance per se "is like" (or is in any sense "the same as") writing a book chapter or a journal article .. which are "normally" what research and scholarship "products" tend to look like.
On the level of the activity itself -- what one spends one's time doing -- they sort of get the point, I think. That is, they know we go in to the dance-creation process with open questions, intuitive hunches, ideas for approaching the work, and that we are informed as we go by the emerging dance, etc. In other words, they know we are conducting practical inquiry into our ideas/materials for new dances, and that our dances are the "findings" of our inquiry.
But they are also aware that when one submits an article or book chapter for publication the submission is blind reviewed or in some other way scrutinized by the field for relevance, originality (of some kind), etc. And, when an article or book chapter is turned down for publication, the writer does not get "research credit" within the university just for having written and submitted it... right?
I think this is why I have had administrators and others ask me "how is making a dance for students to perform in one of the department concerts in your own building actually research/scholarship in the sense of contributions to the whole field?"
So, I wonder how do you all address that kind of question if and when it comes up?
Putting the idea that choreographed and publicly presented dances in a college dance program often lack the equivalence of a peer-review scenario aside for a moment, let's just focus on the idea of choreography as research.
Is a choreographer like a more traditional researcher?
Making a dance can be a way that we answer a relevant question. The question might just be one that WE, the choreographer, are asking but it's a start.
Now, thinking about choreography getting "peer-reviewed":
The difference is that we work with bodies, physical concepts, and a different organizational paradigm too...well, sort of. We have drafts, just like our journal articles. We have deadlines too...and more often than not, our deadlines are FIRM. A concert date is set, your dance needs to be too! Like researched papers, dances shift, change and get clearer as we go along. They get ignored, get inspired, figure themselves out after a new research direction presented itself to the researcher. The difference is essentially what Larry mentions... we don't have a way to validate the research that the choreographer presents in a dance. We accept it at face value and clap when it's over. That's the feedback we get. And we always have applause. No matter what we saw. On the surface, we have a "supportive" audience come and see our dances. I use quotations here because supportive is often synonomous with obligatory. Students are required to see performances. Friends are guilted into attending a dance concert. Boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses and other family members REALLY can't miss it. But feedback from those in our field? (A PEER REVIEW...)
Rarely do we get it. Some of us are lucky to have colleagues and friends ask us some really important questions to nudge our research along but it is through an email or via a post-show moment in the hallway. Or, we get this sort of feedback in a rehearsal that we invite these generous friends and colleagues to come to and they come because they are wonderful and they love us and we love them. But how do we get critical feedback the same way we get from a journal after a handful of blind reviewers read our work? I guess the review is the closest thing. But who reads reviews? And even if we get a review, how often does this happen? No one is ever writing a review or critique of a college dance concert unless it is a student writing a paper for a dance course. How often is there the luxury to have it written by someone in the field and read by people in the field? This is problematic, beyond the main concern: THERE IS NO TIME FOR THIS. But further, we all know each other. We never write what we really saw, believe, wonder about, question, etc. because:
1) it's difficult to put questions about dances that are abstract into cognitive words.
2) we don't do this because it is NOT our dance, so what authority do we have to give feedback.
3) if someone asks for feedback and we have issues with the dance, we worry about hurting someone's feelings.
4) really, how do we know "what's wrong with a dance?" Maybe we know parts of what is wrong but ...even that feels icky and elitist.
(and this opens another can of worms) IF WE GIVE FEEDBACK - WHETHER IT BE POSITIVE OR CRITICAL OR JUST NEGATIVE, THESE ARE OUR INDIVIDUAL BIASES. ISSUES. TASTES.
SO REALLY - HOW THE HELL CAN THERE BE A CRITERIA OR RUBRIC FOR PEER REVIEW? AND EVEN IF THERE WAS ONE, WHO THE HELL WOULD BE THE AUTHORITY (AUTHORITIES) TO CREATE IT?
Well, is it that choreography has a lack of respect in the world of "research" or is it just that we can't think of it in the same way? Yes, choreography isn't validated in the field by an audience of peers in the same way as a journal article is but what can we do to give it something else...?
