Re: money = ability

Mary-Lou Michael (loulou@adam.com.au)
Sat, 10 Jan 1998 13:31:32 +0000

Christopher Sumpton wrote:
>
> Mary-Lou
>
> ?
I'm not sure what exactly this means... I haven't responded for a
while, because I've been trying to finsh my Masters paper... Should
Secondary School Educators consider the integration of Technology into
the current South Australian Dance Curriculum. I'm personally, as you
probably all know really interested... and yet I've read so many
articles... there seems to be a lot happening in the world of dance
and technology, but along with some increasingly viable possibilities
there has arisen much sceptism in the artistic community. Much of the
criticism, and quite understandably so, is related to the essence of
dance and the body, as a separate 'thing' to technology. I think the
issue that technology is the messenger not the message is a good one.
The interesting issue of funding, raised I think by Nick is also a
very viable and controversal one.
I'm not sure if my innitial feelings about d/t are the same anymore. I
don't believe it is a medium we should avoid, or worse, be afraid of,
but I believe we should think carefully about the essence of
technology, and in doing so not forget the essence of dance!!
AND...I loved the thread about children! Perhaps students should have
the opportunities to use technology in dance. Kids aren't afraid of
experimenting and yes if something is 'crap' they'll say so. I think
this is a positive reason for letting students have a go!! If, as many
SA Dance curriculum documents mention, dance education is to foster
and encourage students to become informed audience members, then let
them experiment with new forms. Many of my students responded
positively and negatively to the technology workshop, their comments
were all really interesting... AND they raised similar concerns, that
are raised by adults...as you can probably gather I'm very pro-youth!

Anyway...Two of my students achieved the only perfect scores in the
state for year 12 Dance this year... and I'm over the moon, sick of
writing at my computer and just want to do a bloody dance class and
move!!
More...later
Mary-Lou :-)