MSc Dance Science and Education Conference September 1, 2008 at 8:34 pm
On Friday 29th August 2008, I attended a conference in the Playfair Library in the old college at Edinburgh University. The conference was launching a new MSc Dance Science and Education degree course to be available at Edinburgh from September 2009.
Dr. Jacqueline Smith Autard, world-leading exponent in Dance Education, and Professor David Carr, University of Edinburgh, both spoke about current trends in dance education.
Dr. Smith Autard (whose books I have been using since I was an undergraduate) spoke about Bedford Interactive’s interactive new media resource for the analysis of movement. This excellent facility provides detailed understanding of a range of movements from multiple camera angles and uses path tracing to show specific shapes of, for example, hand motion.
I was quite excited by the idea of hearing directly from people who I have referenced in essays and assignments, and to find myself agreeing with them that dance education should feature in a rounded education for children from the earliest age.
Other speakers at the conference included an orthopaedic surgeon, the Head of Dance at the Scottish Arts Council, other academics, a physio from the Royal Ballet and many others representing the wide interdisciplinary nature of that we call “dance”. Herein lies the key to its importance and the value that dance education has for the development of the whole child.
