"You Are Not Invisible": Using Ritual to Develop Pedagogical Relationships in Kathak Dance

• In Event: 25.068 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 25.068-9 - Culture, Identity, and Social Responsibility in Art and Design Education

Abstract

This paper examines how rituals contribute to developing pedagogical relationships among Asian American youth and their teacher in a kathak dance program. The research draws from ethnographic data collected at a community-based organization. It is driven by the following research question: How do pedagogical relationships give youth dance students visibility in a classical Indian dance class? It suggests ethnic practices, customs and rituals embedded in class can give youth crucial visibility by staff, which counters social narratives situating Asian American youth as “silen[t] and contain[ed],” (Ngo & Lee, 2007 p. 416), or invisible. This paper contributes to the discourse on dance education by highlighting how pedagogical relationships impact cultural competence to reveal unique contextual information about each mover.

Authors

• Betsy Maloney Leaf, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Bic H. Ngo, University of Minnesota