2005 Dance Kinesiology Teachers Special Interest Group Day
Report on Proceedings

International Association for Dance Medicine and Science Annual Meeting
Stockholm, Sweden
November 2005

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Agenda

Introduction of morning discussion topic

Margaret Wilson, MS, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA and Pamela Geber, MFA, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Comparing and contrasting the biomechanical and somatics approaches to teaching kinesiology to dancers

Discussion: An historical examination of our field demonstrates that the physical education model for teaching kinesiology has influenced the development of dance science course work. This model establishes a commonly agreed upon vocabulary for describing movement and emphasizes certain areas of learning. The areas of learning encompassed by this model include:
• learning biomechanical principles that can be applied to the musculoskeletal system
• understanding the design of the bones and joints as these designs relate to movement
• studying the attachments and shapes of muscles as a basis for understanding their movement function at the joints
• Movement analysis or identification of muscles responsible for simple movements.
An alternate approach has been to focus primarily on the physical, kinesthetic understanding of movement efficiency with an emphasis on somatics practices such as Alexander Technique, Ideokinesis, et al. Most teachers of dance kinesiology fall somewhere on a continuum of hard science to mind-body focus.

Go to presentation notes by Margaret Wilson

Go to presentation notes by Pamela Geber

Small group discussion:

Small groups of 5-6 individuals discussed the following questions. One individual from each group recorded, summarized and submitted the salient ideas from the discussion.

Go to summary recorded by Jane Baas

Go to summary recorded by Pamela Geber

Go to summary recorded by Tom Welsh

Go to summary recorded by Margaret Wilson

Roundtable Discussion: Janet Karin, Australian Ballet School and Reetta Ronkko, PhD candidate, University of Kuopio, Finland

Go to Applications of dance kinesiology beyond the University setting outline

Business Meeting

Go to business meeting minutes

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