RESILIENT NETWORKS IN SEARCH OF NEW ARTISTIC AND SOCIAL VALUES POSITION PAPER ACADEMY OF THEATRE AND DANCE ARTEZ ARNHEM 2019
INTRODUCTION When the pursuit of an increasingly inclusive learning organisation becomes the catalyst for education and quality... Why we do what we do....
This presented me with a challenge as academy director. How can good education be facilitated in such a situation? While at the same time, being responsible for working on systematic and strategic long-term development goals. After all, these seem to be conflicting goals and processes.
It began with the translation of an institutional strategic plan 1 into identifiable targets for each course, progressed to course strategy plans and ultimately ended up compiled in an academy-wide long-term plan2 .
That was precisely the challenge: how do we combine the two into a long-term innovation process that enables colleagues (and their students) to feel more involved in and responsible for the structuring of the education, research and development of their organisation? The essence here is the development of defined ownership.
These are not perse activities that professionals like departmental heads and lecturers are particularly enthusiastic about. Their focus – often rightfully so – is on the education, good facilitation of their lecturers and dialogue with students. Long-term strategies are (often) viewed as paper tigers, plans and notes that are a necessity but less relevant to their daily activities.
What’s in it for me?: “Tracing Back’ to our own – artistic – professional practice
How do I remain true to the core of my function?
I was and am still convinced that if professionals interact based on content urgency, on professional ambitions and desires, a genuine and sincere quality will result.
In the years prior to the start of our innovation programme ‘Develop, Do, Disseminate’ in 2015, discussions within the academy staff often focused on the difference between the urgency and dynamics of the education and the shortage of the necessary organisational conditions to facilitate this. “I’m being gradually pulled away from the core of my function and tasks, namely to provide qualitative education!”, as one of the departmental heads expressed her personal opinion and that of her colleagues.
The diversity of opinions, views, ambitions, desires and competences of our course teams should form the basis for any development within the academy. Such basic conditions should be interwoven by definition with a methodology in which our focus on quality and, consequently, on a quality culture would be expressed. So that was
1 The institutional strategic plan developed by an ArtEZ-wide delegation ‘Here as the centre of the World’, also referred to as the ArtEZ IP. 2 Long-term plan 2016-2021, Undergraduate Community T&D, ArtEZ, Arnhem, April 2016.
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In dialogue The first important step was to learn how to engage in dialogue with one another in a different way. The often by hustle and bustle enforced focus to our own (course) organisation gave way to a view of the shared artistic and social values that also affect our teaching approaches. What is of essential importance to the other person? What is he or she pursuing? What does that add to my perspective? That dialogue liberates your thoughts. You are less focused on sending and more on receiving. As a head or director, you do not need to be in control and can participate more or allow others more opportunities to take the helm. The value of having to be in control, only and alone, of every last detail no longer applies since you are engaged continuously in dialogue. This gives a sense of freedom, both to yourself and the other person.
the point of departure in 2015 in formulating the long-term plan. That sense of community formed the basis for the further development of the education, research and organisation of the Academy of Theatre and Dance. We transformed the institute vision and mission of ArtEZ into the desired quality culture of the academy. Ideally, both then and now, an environment is created in which both students and lecturers feel challenged to learn and free to demonstrate and explore the vulnerability inherent to this. The learning outcome of that process is just as important for the learning organisation we aim to become as the ultimate result.
And then….trial and error Making these decisions is one thing, but applying this in practice is quite another: learning with and from each other in our daily work. This demands a different way of interacting, communicating and participating.
Help from within and from without Structurally engaging in dialogue with one another in a different way does not happen overnight however. By considering our own behaviour in order to relinquish the notion of “that’s just how we do it here”, we sought out new forms of leadership and ownership. Our sense of responsibility and involvement grew as we changed our thoughts and actions. The second important step was therefore to provide support based on expertise and validation outside of our own networks.
Whether you like it or not, what you have learned and how you have been trained and educated is deeply entrenched in your ‘genes’. And not easy to change. It determines your perception and attitude towards work. To bring this out into the open, you need to continuously confront, question, include and encourage each other.
The Executive Board provided opportunity and support. They did so to facilitate the search for possibilities of a new and domain specific Professorship for Theatre and Dance. A professorship with a less inherent hierarchical structure then is common, that was more in keeping with our desire to position ownership within the academy itself. With their support, we established a pre-professorship to support this search and process.
In recent years, we have started viewing our own – joint – working method as a research project. What are or were our key questions? How do we arrive at answers and what methods do we use? What assumptions do we have/had? How do we make implicit knowledge explicit? How do we convert knowledge into transferable sources? And, above all, how do we assess and share our findings? Looking back, there are three specific phases that were undertaken.
We invited Henk Oosterling to lend a helping hand. His view on society and how it develops and moves is based on the awareness that everyone is a node in networks of knowledge, experience and skills. Networks
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transcend institutional hierarchies. We find them within the institute, academy and beyond, both nationally and internationally. Networks feature a diversity of participants: students, lecturers, departmental heads, elementary school pupils, elderly people and the physically and mentally disabled, as well as theatre or dance companies, national and international academies and podiums. The list goes on and on and cannot be defined by one theme or project. Becoming a deliberate part of such networks is a continuous learning process befitting our current – digital – age. Or as the DM 3 students expressed it during an evaluation:
possible scale. So, step three was to discuss this openly in order to safeguard the quality of the education, research and organisation in a systematic fashion. In full accordance with the notion of ‘lifelong development’, we began evolving as a community in the spiral of Develop, Do and Disseminate, which in turn resulted in new development, and so on. To a point where we are now able to monitor and control our quality. “Little can be found in writing and whatever is written down is open for discussion. You might say that our Body of Knowledge and Skills is transparent. We talk about it, often and at length... with the core team, with third parties and during roundtable sessions with external and other parties... In all cases, the dialogue is open and lecturers, students and staff can all submit points for attention or improvement.”6
“At ArtEZ there is no hierarchy in learning and development. We are all here for a different reason and we have different roles in this community. There is no power structure, sometimes you are a student or a colleague or a teacher, or even an expert.”
“As lecturers, we talk a lot more than I am accustomed to elsewhere. We engage in conversation much more often. We share and exchange. Personally, this translates into the pursuit of a relationship between the structure of my modules and the other classes. I have a very close working relationship with the lecturers who supervise first-year students in their solos. The same applies to my relationship with a second-year lecturer. I know when students need to submit their concept. I have also examined together with those lecturers what we all consider most important in a concept. The students submit their work to us and we jointly provide feedback on it. We discuss ideas and students receive feedback from two sources.” 7
Shared responsibility The same applies to lecturers, departmental heads, the management team and staff 4 . Their way of teaching, didactically and methodically, is also undergoing development. Everyone is co-responsible for the development of a Body of Knowledge and Skills (BOKS) 5 within the academy – on every
3 DM stands for the Dancer/Maker Bachelor’s programme. 4 Management and staff is under stood as the following at ATD: director, departmental heads, members of staff of the educational office, project office, stage management and management support. 5 Further explained in the Interlude. 6 Source: Lectori Salutem. 7Source: Lectori Salutem.
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Three years into the long term plans
positive responses were received from the professorships, other courses and departments of the ArtEZ University Services Centre – parallel to the internal dialogue that took place as part of the pre-professorship. This helped prove the validity of our values and innovations.
This approach towards a new quality discours is now anchored in our thoughts and actions. The chosen form of professorship enabled us to systemise our work method, with the help of Henk Oosterling and the lecturers. We have as well named this approach in which we continuously provided feedback in order to broaden our knowledge and skills: Circular Valorisation.
At the same time, Henk Oosterling and I – both jointly and individually – presented our methodology 8 during international conferences. Over the period of three years, the results achieved were shared in two internally oriented publications, a number of seminars and a symposium to which other professorships and courses also contributed. The goal of all of these disseminating activities was to validate and share our approach.
This concept of feed backing formed the background for our approach in everything we did. It is circular, cyclical and based on shared artistic and social values, therefore inclusive. This gave colour and shine to the unpacking of the ambitions as defined in the ‘Here as the centre of the world’ institutional plan and made them the perfect fit for our courses – whether the focus was on a) the student, b) repositioning of the Bachelor and Master education, c) investigating and developing a unique ArtEZ quality discourse with corresponding measurement tools ór d) the more flexible and diverse Community of Practice as part of an ‘overturned’ organisation in which courses could be more autonomous and coherent. All of these themes were now topics of discussion from the inside out.
As a result we gradually discovered growing national and international interest and appreciation of our Circular Valorisation. Although this approach did not already exist for the structured monitoring of quality in education, research and organisation elsewhere, the underlying analysis and network discourse in which it is anchored was familiar to all. For theoretical foundation we aligned ourselves with the nationally and internationally accepted perspective as described by UNESCO in 21st Century Skills9. It was the structuring of the learning process in the pre-professorship to make implicit practical knowledge of professionals explicit, that was considered innovative.
Visibility and Impact The Develop, Do, Disseminate (DDD) project formed the approach underlying the innovation of the education of theater and dance in recent years. Our work did not go unnoticed. Our method of sharing artistic values and learning as a community was mirrored in various networks outside of the academy, as explained below. Nor did they lose their effect on the organisation of ArtEZ, as
Our most important motivation Developing innovative and contemporary education however is only relevant if it benefits the students and their education. Our most important motivation has ultimately been the manner in which we aim to train
8 As a university main lecturer at the EUR, though also as director of a large network organisation – Rotterdam Vakmanstad (https://www.vakmanstad.nl) – Henk Oosterling was able to test the concepts both theoretically and practically on other scales and in other forums than in the performing arts. Based on his internationally oriented academic research into crossovers in the arts and involvement in national and metropolitan policy in neighbourhoods and education, he was able to translate the concept for our specific target groups. 9 https://www. aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-21st-century-skills
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courses, they specifically contribute to the integral responsibility for the structure and development of the programme.
our students: how they can assume responsibility for their own learning process in conjunction via networks – and by making them a partner in what we are demanding from them. This is expressed in the course profile for the courses, it is visible in the education and manner in which we support our students in their academic career, it is reflected in the health policy and, last but not least, in co-participation on various levels. Students request and receive support when desired and otherwise have ample opportunity to share the values they personally have formulated as experienced while studying at ArtEZ – in their own words and form. They do this with demonstrable courage, visible competencies and, in my opinion, a reflective ability based on well-founded feedback on their own skills and context.
In short, we look forward to the moment when we can share our experiences, questions and results with the visitation committee. After all, this gives us once again a unique opportunity to receive feedback, valuable advice and suggestions from yet another network. By making good on our promises to practice what we preach and to walk the talk we are more than happy to provide the committee with this joint ‘calling card’. As far as I am concerned, this is worthy of considerable pride! On behalf of all students and colleagues,
It is also clearly obvious that we want students to play a central role in the visit by the visitation committee. During the visit to our
Gaby Allard Director of the Academy of Theatre and Dance ArtEZ Arnhem
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INTERLUDE In support of becoming a learning organisation and being able to structurally relate and rely on a transversal and transferable way of working, we developed what we later named; Circular Valorisation. As we aim to further develop and innovate our education in context, we reference the work to the perspective of Unesco’s 21st Century Skills. It provided an international anchor point, which helped us to start the dialogue on the different scales and identify shared artistic and social values.
Resilient professional practice as main focus point for educational development:
Art education in the 21st century: Body of Knowledge and Skills The scale division of new ‘skills’ described in the 21st Century Skills are in perfect keeping with the Paradigm Shift explained below: sustainable education requires everyone’s input as an expert (lifelong learning), even though the level of the necessary competencies and wealth of experience naturally differ, depending on the topic or role of the persons involved. To demonstrate how these skills are developed on different scales, our academy uses the following distinctions:
"The cultivation of a resilient professional practice asks for different skills, although it is still rooted in embodied physical learning and training. In transitioning to the 21st century a systematic education and cultivation of a modified autonomy is needed, based on a sensibility for the in between, i.e. the sensibility of relations or the inter. This change forces us to re-evaluate the basic discourse/terminology that has regulated our art practices and concepts for the past 200 years. This modern discourse of enlightened politics, individual emancipation and critical avant-garde practices is, in a sense, outdated. Or at least is in need of a structural revision. We need to get beyond this discourse especially in as far as it favors hierarchies and linear – that is – vertical and horizontal thinking, like in Maslow’s pyramid of needs.
• Students: with a focus on their own body and mastery of skills; • Lecturers: with a focus on the body of methodologies, texts, protocols and didactic teaching formats (BOKS); • Professors: with a focus on the discourse – Develop, Do, Disseminate – that links up with the other two ‘bodies’.
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This change in operation and value will redefine our present discursive practices.�
It forces us to alter our educational practices within a new paradigm, parts of which have already been developed, but the coherence of which is not yet formulated. We have to import didactical (working) forms that support the digitalized and globalized world we now live in, taking into account that participation and inclusiveness are structurally, yet not factually part of this. We have to distance ourselves from the master/ pupil model and from exclusively linear thinking, whether this is topdown or bottom-up. Bringing new con-cepts into this participatory context acknowledges the transition we are in and urges us to perform an education paradigm shift.
Shared values are a necessity to facilitate developments on student or educational level. Searching for health and balance in education is another prerequisite, we already discovered, to make developments possible. Changing our way of working on organisational level makes it possible to become this “real� learning organisation. The way this is implemented in our organisation and educational programmes and how Circular Valorisation facilitates these wanted developments is described in the following chapters.
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IN CONTEXT The importance of identified shared values for facilitating development: Community, Communication, Collaboration, Diversity. We illustrate the manner in which we work on developing 21st Century Skills and shared values and how we use Circular Valorisation to achieve this using the three distinctions we have defined above (students, lecturers, professors). It goes without saying that we start with the students. After all, all of our efforts are aimed at facilitating their learning process as best as possible. “It’s all about us, the way teachers approach us and the way the curriculum is built up”
‘The student’ – with a focus on their own body and mastery of skills: “You’re not just another number here. I feel ‘seen’, they know who I am and what I’m capable of”
“There is contact between students of different years, between teachers and between dancers”
“I am here to find my own route and teachers and the programme stimulates that”
“There is no hierarchy in learning and development” “We are all here for a different reason, and we have different roles in this community”
“You are given every opportunity to develop in the best way for you” “I can choose courses from the curriculum that are right for my identity and development”
“There is no power structure” “We as a community are larger than the curriculum and academy itself!” 10
“The feedback is free, if you don’t agree there is room for talk”
10 The literal quotes throughout this paper are derived from various publications and conversations with students, departmental heads and lecturers of the Academy of Theatre and Dance.
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The values of Community, Communication, Collaboration, Diversity are also reflected in the broad professional and social context and predominantly international perspective that the fourth-year students demonstrate in their ‘profiling research’. They conduct this research in various areas of the dance and education world relevant to them.11
These are statements made by students during evaluation sessions conducted in preparation for accreditation in 2019. Interestingly, they express the central values we have identified in their own words: Community, Communication, Collaboration, Diversity. And rightfully so. Our community expands behind the walls of the academy and even the borders of our country. Again and again, students appear to be just as aware of national and international trends – or even more so – than our lecturers.
Students of the Bachelor Dancer/Maker programme also widen their horizons during the first three years when they carry out a ‘professional field orientation’ by visiting various festivals12 and network platforms, where they also undergo training in collaboration with external parties. These investments pay off during the 4th academic year in which all students, with the support of a professional from the field, the Circle of Guides, attend a national or international internship or exchange13 . Every 4th year student selects a professional from the ‘Circle’, who then introduces the student to a variety of networks new to that student. All of this takes place based on a specific learning objective defined by the student in view of his or her professional future. The student and ‘Guide’ work together as peers on the perpetuation of networks that they consider relevant for their further profiling as an ‘independent artist’.
“…and students are so used to having multiple conversations happening at multiple levels at once. It’s so interesting to watch!” This is something to which we devote considerable attention and is being integrated increasingly into the education. Students of the Dance in Education Bachelor’s programme, for instance, take part in the Interdisciplinary Programme during the first three years of their studies. This is a unique partnership between all bachelor in education of the arts courses at ArtEZ in which students are given ample opportunity to broaden their artistic and intellectual horizon in their exploration of various art disciplines. Together with students from other programmes, they closely examine cultural history, learn about approaches in other art disciplines and share experiences. This makes it possible to establish a useful network from the very start of their studies that links up with the networks they already were part of at the start of their education.
Inside is outside, outside is inside: from student to alumni Our alumni are open-minded and reflective. They know how and when to take action. In today’s professional practice, more creative and innovative input is demanded of students, whether they are performing on stage or teaching a class of children or group of people with special needs. Listening, watching, making creative use of whatever is available – this is what they master. They are systematically trained in and seek out productive collaborations with
11 http://up2dfuture.artez.nl 12 Festivals, such as Tanzmesse, NND and Moving Futures. 13 Source: keynote speech by Allard during the Embodied Research and Learning conference
in Canterbury in April 2018 regarding the output of collaboration within the pre-professorship and practical example of Circle of Guides-DM.
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others in a wide range of art disciplines and forms. Thanks to the communication skills they learned during their studies, they are easily able to make the necessary contacts. Apart from traditional approaches, they are able to use surprising new ways to work and collaborate, since creativity and experimentation are part of their DNA. We train our students to be independent artists with a good sense of social engagement, well-developed entrepreneurial skills and the skills needed to work and develop as a professional in a sustainable manner.
Our students are able to translate that story into movement and images. They perform out in public and, in doing so, reach even more people. “What matters most to me is that the people from the Dance in Education programme bring with them their personality, fascinations and skills acquired and say: ‘Okay, who do I want to be? What do I want to excel at? And what kinds of connections do I want to make?’ At ArtEZ, we respond: ‘C’mon, you are perfectly able to make a connection between this kind of institution and this kind of campaign. That was not possible in the past because we did not receive such requests and the lecturer and student did not think in such terms. It also has everything to do with our communication: what is taking place in society and what do we need to communicate that?”
“It won’t be long before the minister demands more dancing in the classroom.” The role of dance and dance education in our society, in which good health and movement are increasingly relevant, is growing exponentially. Our students contribute to this. Students and alumni of the Dance in Education programme, for example, work at primary and secondary schools. They work together with other professionals in cultural productions. They run their own dance schools with a specific focus or produce dance films.
Our students organise workshops, performances, presentations and experiment with new working methods in which they present themselves in a manner that inspires the support of the outside world. Under the guidance of the 4th year students of Dance in Education, all students in that programme organise the annual Mini Dance Festival, an event for primary and secondary school students and other dance amateurs. A new festival is experienced every year by students, lecturers and participants from the affiliated external networks.
Our alumni and students can also be found in more unexpected places: • A sylum seeker centres • Prisons • Nursing homes • Music festivals • Community centres • Psychiatric hospitals
The time when alumni of the Dancer/Maker programme expected to work in a dance company and spend their entire career there has changed along with major changes to the national basic infrastructure. These students are also involved in short-term dance projects. They must present themselves time and again during auditions. That is why learning to position and profile themselves in the professional context of their choice has become a permanent part of the programme. They practice with the instruments needed or required, for
One example of this work should suffice. A cultural institution was looking for a new way to reach out to people and asked us to provide a choreographer who could make a dance for a campaign against domestic violence. The intended added value was the fact that dance can tell an appealing story, in this case the story of domestic violence.
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It is essential that students are aware of these various roles by examining and comparing the underlying ideas. This also pertains to reflective feedback on the individual development and competency level. This may mean having to occasionally relate to a hierarchical pyramidal system in which the boss is actually the boss. Other times, you are expected to take charge or serve as a fellow professional. The circular nature of these roles is of considerable value. This, too, is an aspect of Circular Valorisation.
example, an audition pitch/film. This explains the reason for the workshop 'Dance and Camera', which focuses on how to portray yourself, both literally and figuratively, for a short audition film and similar types of auditions. In other words, students learn to make effective use of increasing digitisation, i.e. the 21st century skill of media literacy. “A dancer is someone who is always being judged, if not by him or herself, then by his or her classmates or the instructor. You are always viewed through the eyes of others. The art that they practice is inextricably linked with the individual body. That makes it so very vulnerable and very unique. In the programme, we do justice to the thinking body and to the artistic and intellectual capacities of the dancer. I scrutinise those things we take for granted in order to examine every individual aspect critically. It’s all about physical reflection. When students come into contact with, for example, philosophy, they learn more quickly based on their own physical experiences than the university students I’ve taught.”
Thinking in terms of networks enriches the more traditional master-apprentice relationship. In other words, a network not only provides a circle of interested parties in positions previously separated, but also makes positions of power circular. Sometimes you are the master, other times the apprentice and still other times a collaborating maker. Previously static, pyramidal relationships are replaced by dynamic ones that evolve along with the prevailing trends, social needs and corresponding changes in the professional field. “We need to have a larger ear, to listen to the young people. Are the students still the same human beings as ten years ago? In drama we say: put away your mobile phones. Put anything aside. Empty space. Here we are. But that is not necessarily right!”
Learning to perform different roles in various networks Students learn to perform a very wide range of roles. To optimally prepare students for the dynamic professional practice, the education continuously challenges the student to switch roles, from the creative maker to the performing dancer, from the lecturer to the supervisor of a fellow student (buddy) or as the supervised student and, from the intern (learning in a professional context) to the artistic researcher or ‘professional peer’ (‘Circle of Guides’).
“Some of the lecturers teach in a more traditional way: ‘You need to be able to do this or that and these are the standards you must meet.’ But there are also quite a few colleagues who completely undermine this approach. They place a bomb underneath it and that’s just fantastic.”
A good programme is primarily the result of listening to students closely, showing interest and being curious about their ambitions, view of the world, fascinations and, above all, their ‘learning resources’. This is what our students will also have to do when they are in charge in the future.
Students learn this implicitly in the manner in which we are accustomed to working together within the academy. Specifying words and actions makes students aware of what the various roles may entail, when you are expected to perform ánd when you want to perform which role.
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“I move along with others and actually talk very little. I think I began talking more as part of the reflection process after classes. But I do notice that students also learn through verbal avenues, by putting your actions into words. I’ve started devoting more time to this. Maybe I should occasionally leave them alone in the process. Those are the kinds of things that change you.”
“In order to try to get into a new system – with videos and WhatsApp and all the things that the students have nowadays – we try to find out how we can combine those new materials with the material we already know, in order to teach them in another way than we have been teaching.”
Of course, the scent of autonomy has always been dominant in art education. This is no different at the Academy of Theatre and Dance. Artistry has something monomaniacal about it. The individual has always been more or less the focus. It is still a matter of individuality and a specific signature. That continues to apply to students. But what is often forgotten is that they in turn learned this from their lecturers, who in turn learned it from their teachers...and so on. This culture of transference is more recognisable than ever. And yet...
From hidden to shared methodology Many lecturers in art education would not readily label their approach as a methodology. Yet all lecturers have a plan, establish criteria and know what they want to see, even if the form is an open one. They assign, for example, a number of exercises – their implicit methodology – and, on the basis of those exercises, can see the student’s progress – often implicit and intuitive, but always professional. That professionalism contains a wealth of quality without the lecturer having to put much into words. By bringing this implicit knowledge to the surface and sharing it systematically in the pre-professorship process, we’ve begun questioning each other’s approach in an unbiased, open and curious manner. We started taking a peek behind each other’s scenes and pulling the tools out of the toolbox. This made the lecturer-specific methodology more explicit, thereby making the various approaches open for discussion and, most importantly, resulting in developmental potential. Conversations on aspirations have taken place through interviews: What is your goal? How can I understand this? Explain! How does this relate to the values of others? How can we combine those values? This created a link to the passion and involvement that are decisive for selecting partners with whom to develop and collaborate, and a stronger definition of ownership. The formal position has become less relevant as a result, whether you are a student, lecturer, departmental head or director.
Relational autonomy Today’s dance world is in search of connection. It seeks out social importance and relevance and contributes to a better society. Our students are aware of their social surroundings and are able to connect to them in a creative manner. We train them to be autonomous artists while, at the same time, part of the social or artistic environment in which they operate. They are equivalent to nodes in a network. We call this relational autonomy 14 . The mutual relationships between teacher and student change when viewed from this relational perspective. Respect for the other person’s values and opinions and the knowledge and experience they contribute are essential basic principles. Without the other person’s perspective, you not only sell yourself short, but also lose the connection that makes your contribution so unique in that context.
14 Henk Oosterling, ECO3. Doendenken. JapSam Books, Heiningen 2013, p. 393.
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Establishing a discours
We created, for example, more opportunities for lecturers to professionalise their own profile and to carry out methodically focused research. They were also given the opportunity to go on an international fact-finding mission and find inspiration and, where possible, express their knowledge on that scale. Professional knowledge is shared broadly and developed further. We also spent educational funds to more systematically anchor the relationship with the professional field. Lecturers attended training courses on giving feedback, in value-oriented communication and in applying the new didactic concepts.
As mentioned earlier, the so-called preprofessorship process, the search for the final form and content of a professorship for the Academy of Theatre and Dance, has resulted in a completely different approach towards dialogue and interaction than we were accustomed to. We have learned to understand each other’s professional views and ambitions. We have discovered the strength of the networks in which we participate. The process of safeguarding and improving the quality of our courses was particularly evident from the growing need for factual sharing, for understanding social and artistic values, convictions and qualities, and about the manner in which we could express these in the courses.
“At the time, I thought: hey, that’s interesting, so the academy itself is also an innovative institution... So, not only do students receive tools from the lecturer, but there is also room for innovation and in-depth exploration. You learn how new concepts come into being. Doesn’t that include the development of new methodologies?”
Social and artistic values were not only found inside the academy; during national and international conferences, we engaged in dialogue with other institutions, with performing professionals and with theatre and dance companies. Our networks grew and turned out to be of significant value for quality assurance and discourse on this within the academy.15 The pre-professorship project provides a living illustration16 of this new working method. It serves as a catalyst for the way in which we organise internal processes and projects – cyclically, based on everyone’s involvement, with a focus on intrinsic values and horizontal-inclusive: with students, lecturers, staff and management in equal and changing roles – but always driven by content.
With national and international conferences, curriculum days, roundtable sessions, workshops, introductions and incidental, joint initiatives by individual lecturers and students, we have been able to successfully clarify and share the knowledge and experience of individual lecturers and, in this way, inspire one another. All of this has served as input for our continuous dialogue on adapting and improving our education and research. We prepare reports on the numerous conversations we engage in and post them in our electronic learning environment. We share experiences, clarify sources and everyone is able to contribute additional focal areas or points for improvement.
At the end of the pre-professorship process, we held a presentation for the Executive Board.17 Its focus was on a research model that does justice to the emancipation and professionalisation of the research conducted within the Bachelor programmes at the academy.
15 Source: ArtEZ Quality Assurance Plan. 16 Source: Lectori Salutem (2016) and Lectori Salutem 2 (2017), Nut en noodzaak van een ArtEZ lectoraat Theater en Dans. 17 Source: Voorstel inrichting en planning Reseach Circle.
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The importance of resilience for facilitating development: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.18� Bearing in mind the definition of health defined by the World Health Organisation, we have developed a more differentiated approach to our focus on sustainability over the past few years. How sustainable are our courses? What matters are not only the physical aspects, but also their social embedding and mentality this requires.
In search of health and balance in education19 :
innovation as mental skills. This leaves us with the question, perhaps the most important in a discipline as dance: how are the social aspect and the mental aspect integrated in physical embodiment? How do students learn to share, how do students learn to manage their skills, not only at school but also after they have left school?
“In developing their (dance) skills students share embodied knowledge with each other. In becoming skilled artists they adopt and adapt on at least three levels: physical, social and mental. In the final instance for dance our body is the medium. Embodiment means first and for all embodying creativity, communication, collaboration and eventually critical thinking in a medium. This already indicates that embodiment is not exclusively physical. Given the 21st Century Skills, collaboration and communication as social skills pair critical thinking and creative
The definition of the World Health Organisation can be helpful to understand the circular interweaving of these three aspects. As we already concluded in 2012 from the Periodised curriculum, resilience is the basic condition for embodiment. This resilience presupposes
18 https://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions 19 Fragment from
keynote speech by Gaby Allard during the Embodied Research and Learning conference in Canterbury in April 2018 regarding the output of collaboration within the pre-professorship and concept underlying Circular Valorisation.
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an integral health. It is precisely this triple concept that was provided by the WHO: health being a reflective attitude towards physical, social and mental aspects. Not as separate domains, but as aspects of a circle. Resilient craftsmanship in dance asks therefore for a reflective adapting and managing of this threefold health. For education this means that those three aspects are constantly looped into each other, with different emphasis in different stages of the education.
‘Periodisation’ within the Dancer/Maker course The methodical basis for the curriculum of the Dancer/Maker course is periodisation. This is also a pedagogic-didactic principle. Periodisation entails more than just physical training during specific periods or the prevention of injuries. It goes far beyond that. It requires a certain mental attitude, as well as social embedding. It is, in fact, a complete web of skills and knowledge. These are divided into phases for good reason. We not only think with our brains, but our body also reflects: it ‘thinks’ through skills, techniques and media or tools. We also interact with other bodies and are subject to continuous feedback. In other words, it is a matter of embodied learning in which creative innovation – in terms of 21st Century Skills – is embedded both conceptually (critical thinking) and socially (collaboration, communication). The central idea behind this is that, with this kind of approach, you train dancers more sustainably and effectively in consideration of a society that demands these new skills.
This is of huge help for educators and staff and for the development of a contemporary curriculum. But the bottom line from the students perspective is the awareness that they are constantly in the action of learning and researching, from the first minute they enter the studio. This Life Long Learning never stops. It requires a circular or cyclic movement through these three elements to create Skills as Embodied Knowledge. Next to the physical environment, collaborating and communicating within communities are included. These two aspects are reflected upon in order to be able to adapt and manage. As such embodiment triggers (self)care and (self) reflection. This mental attitude within social practices conditions the dancer as a reflective practitioner, acquiring embodied knowledge, inspired by the 21st Century Skills.
“The last few years I have been fascinated by the concept of neuroplasticity. How the brain changes itself and is very malleable. I work mostly with physics and principles, and seeing how complexity can influence your ability to engage in anything, basically. And how that engagement then influences back in your ability to concentrate better. In the first three years I didn’t know the students at all, I only knew them by talking to them. Yet I was able, through analysing their thought patterns – they think linearly or in a circular way – or the way they reflect verbally about themselves, to tell them what they are strong at and what they are weak at when they move. And in most cases I was right. That idea of how we think is so connected to how we move, and how we are, how we stand and present ourselves, for me that is one of the most fascinating things.”
In our education at ArtEZ we are aiming at a more sustainable embodiment that, next to the basic physical embodiment, includes social and mental aspects as well.”
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In other words, you do not learn by simply adding more and more. A stress-free environment and flexibility are also necessary for learning in order to foster, maintain and ruminate what has been learned. Recovery time allows knowledge, skills and concepts to sink in better.
Periodisation is about coordinating and integrating the programme components as much as possible within an agreed period of time (phasing). We also equalise performance and creation when necessary for reasons of common interest. The cognitive aspect – conceptuality – is just as important as the performative aspect, the execution. They circle around one another, strengthen each other and both generate the necessary sustenance for improving the performance. In other words, periodisation is the result of a holistic way of thinking about performance, presentation, conceptualisation, verbalisation, reflection and theory. It revolves around offering something on time, taking into account the learning ability of the body, i.e. the tendons and muscles, though also the head. This means that we sometimes restrain a lecturer from teaching new skills during a specific phase of the course based on these kinds of arguments.
“No, you only need to offer maintenance at this point, that mind should not be burdened with new techniques right now. No part of the mind or body should be concerned about new techniques at this time. What is important now is that you only sustain what has been learned, that the body is given the opportunity to sustain in a physical, cognitive and motoric sense, to internalise and to allow everything to sink in.”
The entire assessment process is now also founded on periodisation, based on when you need to know something, have mastered a skill or perform. There are periods when you are evaluated on the acquisition of professional skills, since you primarily train on these and are assessed as such. This is referred to as the Craft Phase. But we also work with programme components that focus on converting knowledge into artistic and social practice, the so-called Integration Phase. Here the focus is on applying what has been learned in a training session or creation and how you have mastered this in terms of your own profiling. It should be clear that periodisation has also resulted in more targeted discourse between Dance in Education and the Dancer/Maker courses.
“This school is like a community centre on Saturdays” The Bachelor of Dance in Education wants to push the limits of the programme beyond the institute and country borders. On Saturday, dancers from all academic years, students from other courses, non-professional dancers, and other external guests enjoy lessons by John Wooter, lecturer of Physical Dynamics and pioneer in spreading the concept. Fascinated by and working with a variety of forms of modern dance, he has been engaging in Physical Dynamics, a training method he developed, for years. This unique methodology builds a bridge between theatre dance and urban dance. Free runners were his inspiration. “Those guys could do just about anything, but how they did so was often a matter of intuition and speed ....the more often and accurately you do it, the more your body will recognise it.
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way around. That equality is referred to in the course jargon as the ‘crew’ concept.
At that point, you will have overcome your fears and mastered the trick. They physically challenged their bodies to the limit, but there was no true training method underlying it. This interested me since there is definitely a technique behind this. What also fascinated me was how they learned from each other.”
“The moment you have to do a certain ‘freeze’ and aren’t able to, the student next to you may say, ‘yo, try it like this’. Or you can easily walk up to someone you think has mastered it better and ask them for help. This happens spontaneously and is something that is unthinkable in traditional academy classes. It would be chaos. My classes are not chaotic. I mingle with the students and zoom in on individual efforts, i.e. ‘mindset’.”
The current generation of Dance in Education students want to be approached in a different way both physically and didactically. They learn differently, with greater movement and perhaps a bit faster as well. The course wants to align with the natural movement and innovativeness of the students. This means a bit more of an uproar in the building and team of lecturers. Guest lecturers are brought in to bring fresh cultural air into the academy. The target group is those young people who are not particularly willing or able to jump through the hoop of classical training. This is partly the reason why we bring current events into the academy, stimulate cultural diversity and strengthen the role and significance of dance education in society. A different dynamic implies a different programme.
The focus is on the integration of body, mind and heart, so that the student learns what is needed to ultimately become an individual artist. This way, you do not become the person the lecturer wants you to be, but the person you want to be. After all, that is the only way to distinguish yourself from the crowd. In other words, the course aims to train every student to be reflective, self-regulating and self-profiling – not only physically and socially, but also mentally. Not surprisingly, the writing of reflections is also a part of Physical Dynamics. Students experience this as difficult in the beginning. But, again, they need to have the opportunity to learn and research at their own pace. This ultimately leads to faster results than in classes with a more traditional dance style. The philosophy and use of this method has become commonplace among lecturers and students and Physical Dynamics has achieved what it was intended to achieve within the course, namely that “everyone you work with as a lecturer (social inclusion) is able to dance and all training methods can and do reinforce one another!”
The course has now focused on the Physical Dynamics method for more than four years. Physical Dynamics makes a unique contribution to the programme. It is now an established training method that helps students to incorporate self-management, content and artistic individuality into their graduation profile. This method has a different approach for both the lecturer and his or her interaction with students as for the students themselves. Together with Reflective Practice and Mindset, Physical Dynamics offers students a highly innovative teaching and training method based on the circular thinking and acting we have implemented in our courses. This methodology is founded on the notion of a circle-based approach. The Physical Dynamics methodology is rooted in the philosophy of social constructivism in which the student is equally as important as the lecturer. The student takes on the role of lecturer just as easily as the other
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The importance of revising the operation of education for facilitating development: Influence on daily practice: best practices. Developing a ‘different, new’ way of working has an impact on the entire organisation, not only on students and lecturers. Other parts of the organisation must also be included in contemplating and participating in the changing quality culture. The development of this discourse, the underlying theory and practice of action, also demands permanent dialogue and coordination with the context of the education and research, namely the organisational components. During various sessions, the general staff meetings and workshops, efforts are made to include all academy staff in the process of change to Develop, Do and Disseminate.
Develop, Do, Disseminate
and explain why it is not relevant for you and what needs to be changed to make it of value. This enables us to take joint responsibility for a theme and, in doing so, commit to developing aspects of a theme that are of value to the other four courses. This is not something you can easily walk away from.
The Develop, Do, Disseminate project is a four-year innovation process that affects the entire academy and does not just concentrate on the two dance courses. The heads of the departments are the owners of their education and of the central innovation themes that they develop together with other lecturers from the Theatre and Dance courses in core teams: intake, flexibility, inclusion, feedback, digitisation and integral testing & assessment. In all of these themes, the underlying question is whether this is of value to you (valorisation). If not, send it further (circular)
Commitment does not take place overnight, of course. It takes time and effort, insight and confidence, by engaging in dialogue with each other in a whole new way. This must also be based on the conviction that real and genuine quality originates from content urgency and
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professional ambitions and fascinations. As an academy, we have given and received that freedom and opportunity to a significant extent – spontaneously and organised, randomly and deliberately. Within the fouryear programme, we established specific objectives every year and learned to work together through trial and error.
Looking back on all of these processes over the past four years, we can safely say that we have have transcended our own boundaries. Room for dialogue has been created. And eyes and ears opened up to the contributions and approaches of others. When the innovation engine began running at one point, we noticed that we became tremendously creative in the organisation of meetings. You find inspiration from and with each other. You become a creative developer and entrepreneur.
During joint sessions, we learned to inquire about each other’s values. After all, these are important motivations for our actions. Being open to another person’s values makes behaviour understandable, even if you sometimes have difficulty with that behaviour. Values explain our norms to some extent. That clarification makes dialogue on other norms possible, without getting bogged down in misunderstandings. Obviously, conflicts arise. But that is only natural when a topic is of importance. But such disagreements always lead to new insights.
“It makes it possible, as a departmental head, to freely consider ways to facilitate such development and how I can place the focus on the lecturer within the course in ‘redefining the profession of the dance-teacher’.”
The subsequently new and improved quality culture is based on the quality calendar. This guarantees more formal quality instruments like surveys, roundtable sessions and discussions on academic calendars and long-term plans. In addition, the quality calendar provides a set rhythm of quality actions. These also include the networks that ensure consultation with other courses and education in the art programmes, both within and outside of ArtEZ and the professional field.
Sharing.... Developing was something we already did and doing was not a problem, but sharing our knowledge? There is the misunderstanding that, when you share, you end up with only half. In the 21st century, thanks to digitisation and insight into the creative power of collaboration, that is no longer a valid argument. Sharing is multiplying. Sharing is communicating and participating. We are now in the 3rd year of thinking and working with networks and shared know-how. Obviously, that does not manifest itself only in the way in which we organise things. It permeates the education by definition, impacts students and now pervades the manner in which the Academy of Theatre and Dance functions as a whole. Theatre and Dance work together in networks. The joint development of all kinds of themes within the education is now commonplace throughout both courses. Everyone is involved.
“To be honest, I now notice how fun, useful and rewarding it is to converse with others, with other disciplines, but also with colleagues from different academic years.”
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Research Circle and future professorship
The Theatre in educaion course in Zwolle, for example, developed knowledge of learning platforms, digital feedback and student portfolios as part of this process. This was a sub-project assigned to them in the project, just like the dance courses are the initiator of a topic/development. By intertwining the various scales of feedback and by taking joint responsibility for the development of the ‘concept and product’, both dance courses will be implementing the developed knowledge and digital platform from the successful pilot by the Zwolle Digital Community project this coming year. This is how it works.
In the creation of the profile of the professorship and research circle, the earlier described new working method clearly resounds 21 : the use of feedback loops and joint development as a Theatre and Dance community – including the Master – in anticipation of the upcoming appointment of the professor. The core idea forms the value we have personally defined of the individual research in the Bachelor’s programme for the entire chain of Bachelor, Master and Professorship. We establish this value by:
Another example is the project Integral Testing and Assessments that the School of Acting and Theatre in Education Arnhem carried out. The findings of that project will be rolled out in the dance courses in customised processes. In combination with the results of the project Feedback, the central role played by feedback in integral assessments and more in general in the personal and professional development of the student became patently clear. 20
• Identifying relevant networks per course and, as part of this, the feedback loops promoted by the student; • Determining the potential of the research in order to strengthen the Bachelor or Master research;
Lecturers from all courses were involved in the Feedback project. The project group meetings served as a pressure cooker for knowledge sharing and development. The courses conducted joint research into best practices in this area and the impact of the project is visible in innovations in all courses, not only in the method of giving and receiving feedback, but also in the growing culture of equal relationships.
• Installing a Research Circle in which the research portfolio of the Bachelor courses in Theatre and Dance and the Theatre Practices Master’s programme strengthen one another. All in all, this has resulted in an innovative scenario for the establishment of the Theatre and Dance professorship. This includes a concept profile for the professor to be appointed and the establishment of the Inner Research Circle for Theatre and Dance, with only the departmental heads and members of staff, and an Outer Research Circle with both lecturers and students. An implicit component of the Research Circles programme is ‘Inclusive Develop, Do, Disseminate’ as one of the core themes in the ArtEZ innovation programme as a whole: ‘Diversity in Action’.
20 http://innovationprojects.artez.nl/ddd-blog4-relation-integrated-assessment-integraaltoetsen-feedback 21 Source: Slotoverleg met Docenten over kennisdeling en lectoraat, 1009-2018.
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Sharing is valorising and provides the option of a feedback loop... Lecturers hold regular presentations on the structure and specific characteristics of our courses during international (Next Move 22 ) and national platforms (Peer Reviews). Apart from unique opportunities to share our experience and knowledge with other professionals, these offer the opportunity to gain new insights that can be incorporated into our programmes.
Twice a year, we hold Dance in Education roundtable sessions and Dance/Maker professional field meetings to keep communication lines with the professional field, alumni, lecturers, representatives of internship companies and students short and discuss current issues and developments. These often include a presentation by students. They are low threshold, strong in content and, at the same time, an opportunity to network!
22 http://www.nextmove-eu.com – Next Move is an Erasmus project for Dance in Education in collaboration with Art Institutes DOCH, Sweden and Aarhus, Denmark.
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IN CONCLUSION Circular Valorisation: communicating and participating. We now take a different approach to the DEVELOPing, DOing, DISSEMINATing. Together we create new values by working together on innovating the education, organisation and partnerships in all openness and without consideration of formal positions and seniority. We share our values, search for innovations, are open about our teaching practices and changed organisation, get an insider’s look at different approaches and work together in projects. We have torn down the walls. We have retrieved national and international feedback and use it to enrich our thinking and doing. And we have also started sharing systematically on both the national and international levels.
why I’m so pleased with our circular thinking, that we no longer have to think this way.”
Cyclic approach We make our artistic and social knowledge circular, learn from each other’s experiences and are slowly changing our initially more individually oriented culture. In a nutshell, we started valorising in a circular manner. A unique project that, as mentioned earlier, radiates on students, lecturers, management and staff, but also on the larger organisation that ArtEZ has become.
The scales within our community differ, of course. There is the scale of both courses, of the academy, of ArtEZ as an institute and the scale of national and international fellow institutes. But what we all have in common is that all networks on those scales interact. Through Develop, Do and Disseminate, they provide a wealth of knowledge, experience
“We used to compartmentalise, didn’t we? That’s another reason 22
and perspectives from which everyone benefits. We work with different goals, but based on shared values. Depending on the scale, those values have their own unique form and content. The results speak for themselves. Students are satisfied, as is clear from the National Student Survey and internal dialogue. They appreciate the courses on a much higher level. Lecturers continue to develop and professionalise. They attend courses, take part as reflective practitioners in the continuous dialogue about the field and are actively involved in various innovation projects. The management team has found a way in recent years to work together without its individual members losing their individuality. All of this enhances our resistance within the rapidly changing professional and educational context. Naturally, there are always plenty of matters that can be improved. We are and will continue to be an art academy with self-thinking students and lecturers. Obviously, conflicts arise. We are no stranger to tension. And attempts sometimes fail. But failure is part of the learning process and, thanks to feedback, can be the key to success. As far as that is concerned, we are no different than other institutes. What makes us unique is the manner in which we are able to integrate improvements, changes and desired developments and combat threats. Our internal and external networks enable us to identify negative aspects early on, embrace them with resilience and implement with decisiveness. Equally as important, we also assume a pioneering role on occasion. As mentioned above, students are actively involved in the various networks and able to full the various roles within them. They enter the professional field with these experiences, knowledge and ingrained network ‘skills’ and change that field from the inside
‘”Every warrior is a giver” is the title of his ‘interim’ farewell speech for Rotterdam Vakmanstad, which he founded, managed and has now handed over to a new generation. Why warriorship? In his response, Oosterling betrays his Japanese learning experiences: “Because the real battle in the learning process is always a battle with yourself.” Whether you are a student or lecturer, your abilities and your strengths are often hidden behind hesitation. Who does not have their doubts at the ‘moment suprême’? At the Academy of Theatre and Dance, we all learn to overcome that hesitation. We do not shout it down, we do not crawl away from it, but learn respect and appreciation of our strengths, pitfalls and abilities.
“What I really like is that there is no start to a feedback loop. It’s a wonderful thought. Since you’re part of it, there is a sort of beginning, but there is also something behind you. There is always something in front and behind, a sort of evolution. Everyone you encounter or everything that happens is always ‘on the move’. And that’s also been my personal experience!”
Lifelong learning An ArtEZ dancer/maker and dance educator, professional to the very core, continues to nourish himself in our eyes. Our graduates are lifelong learners. Within a different context, Oosterling talks about warriorship.
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SOURCES CONSULTED
Henk Oosterling (ed.), Lectori Salutem, Nut en noodzaak van een ArtEZ lectoraat ArtEZ, Theatre and Dance, 2016 Henk Oosterling (ed.), Lectori Salutem 2 , Nut en noodzaak van een ArtEZ lectoraat ArtEZ, Theatre and Dance, 2017 Next Move, into the future of Dance and Music Education International Conference 25 – 26 May, Arnhem, Netherlands Next Move Lab, De Dansdocent in 2025 Bachelor of Dance in Education, ArtEZ University of Arts, 2018 Beyond Ballet , Why and How An international conference, initiated by education, partnered by the dance profession ArtEZ Dansacademie, Arnhem, Netherlands, in partnership with Baletakademien, Stockholm, Sweden, 16-18 April, 2015 Henk Oosterling, Iedere krijger is een gever, Kanttekeningen bij een voorlopig afscheid Farewell speech, Rotterdam Vakmanstad, www.vakmanstad.nl/categorie/ algemeen/ Conversations with Luc Corstens and Gaby Allard Internal memorandums from the Academy of Theatre and Dance Long-term plan 2016 – 2021, Undergraduate Community T&D, ArtEZ, Arnhem, April 201
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COLOPHON Published by Academy of Theatre & Dance Text Arjo de Vries Editorial staff Henk Oosterling, Eva van der Molen, Netty van den Bosch, Jochem Naafs, Fenna van der Burgt, Maartje Boland Editors-in-Chief Gaby Allard, Luc Corstens Design Marriëlle Frederiks, grafisch ontwerp i.s.m. Einder communicatie en Supermassive Print Drukmotief Copyright © Academie voor Theater en Dans, ArtEZ, Arnhem, 2019