Accompanying Learning in Dance Classes in Quebec Schools through Movement Observation Analysis (MOA)

Abstract

As a school discipline in Quebec, dance is heir to the Modern Educational Dance (MED) movement, founded by Rudolf Laban (1948, 1976), better known in Quebec as creative dance (Raymond, 2014, p. 22). About ten years ago, Movement Observation-Analysis (MOA) (Harbonnier, Dussault, Ferri, 2021) was introduced into the artistic and pedagogical training of school dance teachers in Quebec. With the aim of revising ministerial programs for teaching dance in Quebec schools, which are over twenty years old, we wondered how MOA concepts were useful to dance teachers in Quebec schools. To this end, we asked ten school dance teachers to describe their use of OAM in their teaching, using the technique of the explicitation interview (Vermersch, 1994). With regard to the pedagogical function of school dance teachers, the results of our research, through the case study of teacher Suzie, show that MOA provides an enriched and clarified conceptual framework and lexicon to refine movement observation activities (diagnostic function), improve pedagogical communication (physical demonstration and verbal instructions), and provide knowledge about movement to share with students, fostering their autonomy in learning (learning support function).