Proquest Dissertations
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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are availat>le for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and teaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI POWER RELATIONS IN THE DANCE CLASSROOM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Clyde Franklin Smith, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Professor Seymour Kleinman, Adviser Professor Melvin Adelman Advisér Professor Patti Lather Education UMI Number 9982979 UMI UMI Microform9982979 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This study is an investigation of power relationships in the dance classroom. Its general focus is the concert dance technique class with a particular concern for professional dance training. The investigation has two primary stages of research both of which are informed by the author’s self reflections on his own experiences as a dancer and educator. The first stage draws upon interviews with students who attended a dance conservatory known for the brutality of its faculty. This stage attempts to understand why students considered abusive treatment an acceptable aspect of their professional training. The works of Michel Foucault, Arthur Deikman, Louis Coser and Erving Goffman are used to construct a theoretical network. This network aids the author in both understanding the first stage of research and in applying insights from this extreme case sample to the classroom of a modem dance instructor, Susan Van Pelt, known for her caring behavior. This second stage of research is considered one possible answer in action to the question of how insights drawn from the first stage of research can be applied to other settings which are less extreme. u The investigation as a whole is particularly influenced by Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power and by Michel Serres’s perceptions regarding the mobility of the researcher. The overall structure of the dissertation is an alternative form based on narrative elements which also reveal the author’s own development as a researcher. ui ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my adviser, Seymour Kleinman, for giving me the space to develop my unique trajectory through this doctoral program. I also thank Melvin Adelman who advised me during my first year in the doctoral program and Angelika Gerbes who served on my initial doctoral committee. I thank Patti Lather who revealed the possibilities for research in a postparadigmatic diaspora. I also thank Laurel Richardson who encouraged me to explore writing as analysis. I will always appreciate the responses of the women I interviewed who remain anonymous in this study and for my all too brief collaboration with Susan Van Pelt who also provided real friendship. I remain deeply grateful to Susan Stinson who helped me become a researcher and who gracefully navigated the transition from mentor to colleague. And, finally, I must thank my parents for their support before, during and, no doubt, after my odyssey through graduate school. IV VTTA October 5, 1959 .......................................... Bom - San Antonio, Texas 1982 ............................................................... B.F.A. Dance Performance and Choreography, University of North Carolina, Greensboro 1986 - 1988 ................................................ Co-Director, The Movement Zone, Raleigh, North Carolina 1989 - 1992............................................... Member, The High Risk Group, San Francisco, California 1993 - 1995............................................... Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of North Carolina, Greensboro 1995 ................................................................M.A. Dance and Performance Studies, University o f N orth Carolina, Greensboro 1995 - present............................................ Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University PUBUCATIONS 1. Smith, C. (1999). How I became a queer heterosexual. In Straight with a twist. Calvin Thomas, Ed. Champaign, IL: Univ. of Illinois. 2. Smith, C. (1999). Power relations in the dance classroom: Alternative forms of data presentation. In Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of the National Dance Education Organization. Cincinnati, OH: National Dance Education Organization. 3. Smith, C. (1998). On authoritarianism in the dance classroom. In Dance, power and difference. Sherry Shapiro, Ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. VI 4. Smith, C. (1996). Men’s rowdy dances making gender trouble. Contact Quarterly. 21(2). 26-30. 5. Smith, C. & Kleinman, S. (1996). The somatics challenge: Creating an education for the 21st century. GAHPERD Journal.30( 1 ), 25-28. 6. Smith, C. (1996). Encountering the prayerful dancing body: Developing an I-Thou Research Stance. In Proceedings of the Congress on Research in Dance. Greensboro, NC: Congress on Research in Dance. 7. Smith, C. (1996). Thoughts on the missing bodies. Spotlight on Dance. (22)2. 8. Smith, C. (1995). Let sleeping dogs lie. P-Form: A Tournai of Interdisciplinary and Performance Art. (36). 9. Smith, C. (1995). Mandala and the men’s movement in the light of feminism. In Proceedings of the 38th World Congress of the International Council for Health. Physical Education. Recreation. Sport, and Dance. Gainesville, FL: International Council for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Sport, and Dance. vu FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Education Dance Cultural Studies Qualitative Research V lll TABLE OF CONTENTS Page A b stra c t ____________________________________________________ ii Acknowledgements__________________________________________ iv Vita „ . „„ ___ __________________ V Preface 1 Introduction 8 Chapters: f Early Studies 31 2 Gathering Tools to Build a Theoretical N etw ork»*#*###»#«#####*##*################ 94 3 Networking Data _______________________________________ 115 4 Teacher Talk in the Caring Classroom ___________________ 144 Conclusions_________________________________________________ 185 A fterw ord___________________________________________________ 196 Appendix A _ _________________________________ 202 Appendix B __________________________________________________ 207 Appendix C __________________________________________________ 209 Bibliography ________________________________________________ 216 IX PREFACE The Struggle with Language This project emerges from my struggles with language: what to say, how to say it, to whom to say it. On the one hand, this work is a dissertation document. On the other, it is an attempt to begin to write a book which might circulate beyond the confines of doctoral committees and bound dissertation volumes in a rarely visited area of the library. The result of this struggle is a sometimes awkward text, one which disperses the traditional elements of a dissertation throughout its body without necessarily becoming a book one would write under different circumstances. My dissertation committee generously allowed me to take a chance with this liminal project, one which is between shores, which leaves both myself and the reader in mid-passage (Serres, 1997). The section of my dissertation proposal presenting my ideas regarding an alternative dissertation format is included in Appendix A. I discuss such issues further in my introduction, but here I wish to speak more generally of the issue of language. I am tom between producing an elegant theoretical display and a text accessible to a wider audience. Yet 1 do not hope to reach a popular audience but more a college educated one with an interest in seriously considering the intersections of such topics as dance, education and society, one which may not be otherwise drawn to the theoretical material with which 1 work. Even this somewhat limited audience will be limited further by the brute reality of the actual reading interests of educators, dancers and those who may find such topics of interest. In my experience, educational researchers outside the arts generally will not read a book with the word dance in the title unless they have some personal involvement with dance.