Learning on the Go - Journey of a Dance Educator in a K-12 Space in India

ABSTRACT Dancers in India come from a background that focuses on performance and are trained to teach the way they were taught. When such dancers join a K-12 space as dance educators, they need to find new ways of teaching dance and movement. The teaching strategies employed in a dance studio, institute, or under a guru vary immensely from the strategies employed in a school. This article is a beginning into identifying some accessible and culturally relevant teaching practices that may help a dance educator establish connections between students’ personal experiences and their classroom content in K-12 spaces. This is being written at a time when the country is witnessing a paradigm shift in its education system leading to an increase in demand for dance educators in the K-12 spaces because of India’s 2020 “The New Education Policy.” The hope is that this article empowers future dance educators to find and document their experiences.