Relationship Skills

Social-Emotional Learning in the Dance Classroom

By Rachel Swenson

Editor’s note: This is the second offering in our SEL series. daCi member Rachel Swenson has been researching SEL as a doctoral student at Teachers College and uses it as a pedagogical framework in her work as a dance educator in Idaho. Each column focuses on one of the five domains in SEL.

Dance education is a powerful tool for promoting social-emotional learning. SocialEmotional Learning (SEL) is an approach to teaching and learning that centers “recognizing and managing one’s emotions, developing caring and concern for others, establishing positive relationships, making responsible decisions, and handling challenging situations constructively and ethically.” The five social and emotional competency domains are self-awareness, selfmanagement, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and…..relationship skills, which is the topic of this column and a perfect fit for dance education.

What are relationship skills, exactly? The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leading organization in the field, defines relationship skills as the “abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups”

Thinking about teaching through the perspective of relationship skill-building can be a useful and constructive exercise. What interpersonal skills can students learn in our dance classes?

Dancemaking as a collaborative process is at the heart of my dance curriculum so relationship skills are built in and developed from the start. The projects typically involve groups of three to seven who work together for two to six weeks.

The projects are wide-ranging in content. They might be prompted by researching a current or historical choreographer, school theme (Unity, Creativity, Respect, Expression, Acceptance, Trust, Excellence), artwork, poetry, props, social justice themes, or student journal writing. The content is then explored through improvisational play. Often these small group projects are expanded into full-class dances, with small group sections within them. All projects lead to theatrical performances.

Some of the students mentioned that having time to get to know each other before starting to work together was crucial for building a positive community. This suggests the importance of ice breakers and social introductions at the start, and building ongoing practices of feedback and support into the class. Some activities and practices I use to promote this include: partner mirror warmups peer-led flocking warmups silent movement conversations as a warmup peer partners giving constructive and positive feedback after watching each other in class

Secret Sunshine Friend (small gestures made to a dance peer to show appreciation, such as a poem or sweet treat) positive word or phrase about a peer written on a sticky note and placed on them.

Through active listening, one can show the person that is speaking to you that you care about what they are saying while also absorbing important information from the speaker. Another positive relationship skill I was reminded of was the power of assisting teammates. Everyone gets confused sometimes and having someone there to help you with the choreography, or

After each choreographic activity I asked the students to name and describe their burgeoning relationship skills. I see the positive results of this SEL approach reflected in their own words:

When you listen to other people’s choreographic ideas, the dance can become a lot better and more interesting.

I also listened to other people's ideas and spoke up for them when others weren’t listening to their ideas.

Another thing I learned is that making sure your dancers are having fun in the process of creating choreography is key to having them connect in a deeper level of understanding.

There were multiple occasions where the dancers had to work together to create new phrases from the original phrase we learned. This is helpful for learning how to collaborate and listen to other dancers.

Talking to others as you work on the dance and sharing ideas can make the dance easier and quicker without people fighting and getting mad.

In general, the positive and inclusive atmosphere fostered by the SEL approach was a source of surprise and delight for me as the teacher. I highly recommend trying it!

WORK CITED: CASEL. (2022). What is the CASEL Framework? Referenced from https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-thecasel-framework/#relationship

Rachel Swenson is a dance specialist at Idaho Fine Arts Academy and a dance teaching artist for the Idaho Commission of the Arts and the Utah Arts Council. She is pursuing an Interdisciplinary specialization as a doctoral candidate in the Ed.D. Dance Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University Her research interests include social-emotional learning and social processes in collaborative choreography, and cognitive processes in creativity, as well as other areas.