Digital tools in formal and informal dance education environments

This chapter considers reflections from the EU-funded H2020 WhoLoDancE project and the work that developed from the three-year investigation (2015-2018). A second case study introduces the digital toolkit produced as part of the EU-funded project, CultureMoves (2018-2020), and its potential uses in dance training and education. We reflect on a series of educational workshops (LabDays) with both undergraduate and postgraduate Dance and Architecture students undertaken in 2019-20. These practical sessions revealed several possibilities for the tools within the context of dance education (in terms of both practice-as-research and learning/teaching) and choreographic creation, situated across three main areas: in the teaching of dance material, in the remaking and transmitting of existing work and as a choreographic tool for creating new work. Both case studies reveal the thinking that took place in both formal and informal dance education environments and provide insight into the role that digital technologies play in framing new dance education teaching methods. In terms of theoretical and philosophical scaffolding, a focus on Ethics of Care and Embodied Ethics underpins our analysis of the two case studies and the digital tools referenced.