This exposition is part of the peer-reviewed article:
Østern, T. P., Reppen, C., O’Connell, S., & Daneberg, M. (2025). Choreographer/researcher/teacher: Developing a/r/tography as an approach to dance pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in a professional learning community of teachers. Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5460
It was a long, creative, and challenging task to design the course, with highly qualified students — my own colleagues — as the target group. I was intrigued by the opportunity, as it truly nurtured my own professional development. I drew on my own experience, considered how I would want the course to be designed if I were taking it, read extensively in the field of a/r/tography, and engaged in conversations with colleagues.
Learning goals
1) give an account of a/r/tography as a hybrid research methodology.
2) give an account of a/r/tography as a field within research and teaching through a digital exposition.
3) demonstrate an in-depth understanding of a chosen area within the a/r/tographic field in dialogue with relevant literature.
4) demonstrate the ability to apply a/r/tography as a research methodology connected to the own
teaching practice.
5) discuss critically the application of a/r/tography as a methodology within one's own teaching in dialogue with relevant literature.
6) demonstrate the ability to, based in a/r/tography, provide constructive supervision to a peer in a collaborative process.
7) present an a/r/tographic process in a digital exposition.
Dive 3: Designing the course A/r/tography in theory and practice in higher education (7.5 ects)
I approached the course design as expanded choreography (Klien, 2008; León, 2020; Ölme, 2017). I created a series of impulses and inputs intended to activate and move the students' professional knowledge. I wanted them to do the work — not me — and I did not want to provide a definitive answer to what a/r/tography is. Rather, I aimed to create a choreographic score of compulsory tasks that would allow them to explore what a/r/tography might do to their professional practice and their understanding of practice-led research.
I wanted the course to stay closely connected to the staff-students’ own teaching and research practices. I wanted artistic approaches and thinking with theory to be clearly present. I aimed to lecture as little as possible, and instead offer tasks that would open up opportunities for supervision and dialogue — both between the participants and me, and among the staff-student peers.
Looking back, the following design principles were activated in the way I structured the course:
- An a/r/tographic approach throughout the course: Emphasizing doing a/r/tography rather than merely learning about it.
- Online-only delivery through digital platforms: This created specific frameworks that allowed students to connect with their local contexts.
- Minimal but intensive online teaching sessions: The remaining teaching and learning processes occurred through compulsory tasks, individual and peer supervision, and the creation, sharing, and discussion of digital expositions.
- Leaning on students’ ongoing arts teaching practices: Active teaching practice was a prerequisite for participation in the course.
- Development of a/r/tographic prompts: Students engaged with these prompts as a way to process and unpack a/r/tographic ideas throughout the course.
- Emergent adaptation of a/r/tography to dance and other performing art forms.
- Use of digital platforms (Research Catalogue or Padlet): These served as spaces to integrate arts-making, teaching practices, practice-led research, and theoretical engagement, allowing students to document and share their a/r/tographic processes.
- Portfolio-based assessment: The portfolio included all materials produced during the course.
- Final exposition on Padlet or Research Catalogue: The exposition and its accompanying discussion functioned as the final portfolio. All components were assessed as a cohesive, evolving whole, aligned with the course learning outcomes.
References
Klien, M. (2008). Choreography as an aesthetics of change. Edinburgh College of Art.
Leon, A. (2020). Between and within choreographies. An early choreographic object by William Forsythe. Dance Articulated, Special Issue: Choreography Now, 6(1), 64-88.http://dx.doi.org/10.5324/da.v6i1.3639
Ölme, R. (2014). From model to module: A move towards generative choreography (Doctoral dissertation, KTH Royal Institute of Technology). KTH Royal Institute of Technology. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A717893&dswid=8995