Teaching the Dance Steps: A Research on the Teaching Methods of 'Dance for Health' Teachers

Abstract

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a progressive uncurable brain disease.Therefore, it is necessary for the people who have PD to find ways to live their life physically and mentally in the best way possible under this condition. The dance organization Dance for Health (DfH) offers a solution by setting up dance classes designed specifically for people with PD. Due to tips and tricks they learn from the DfH teachers, the participants experience physical improvements. Improvements are also noticed in the mental state of the person with PD, as it is often the case that people with PD live in isolation due to their physical limitations.

This study argues that DfH teachers implement exercises, which function as educational tool to transfer empathy to their participants. This is researched by visiting DfH lessons and interviewing three DfH teachers about their synthetized teaching method, which gave insight in how a DfH class is constructed. The attention is put on three kinds of empathy, namely somatic, mimetic and kinesthetic empathy, as formulated by cognitive scientist Edward Warburton.

This led to the following research question: How is empathy visible as educational tool in a synthetized teaching method of a Dance for Health teacher?