Before I participated in my first Dialogic Dance Research (DDR) session, the term “research” evoked images of undergraduate students mixing chemicals in a laboratory or carefully transcribing old letters in a quiet library. I had a very narrow scope of what research looked like and I struggled to relate my visions of polishing test tubes or pouring over old text to dancing. This past week, however, my MAP mentor, Celeste Miller, and her colleague, Michael Richter, introduced me to DDR as a way to both pose and answer research questions.
One of the ideas behind DDR is that before we even ask a question, we have some pre-existing background knowledge in our bodies and that we can use dancing as a means to access that information. Everyday, Naomi Worob, my fellow student researcher, and myself were tasked to generate at least one question and explore possible answers or related pieces of information using only ourselves and each other as resources.
I was largely skeptical of DDR before and during my first session because I had never heard of anything like it before. When I need to research something because I have a question, I almost always perform a Google search and skim the internet, occasionally seeking out print books in the public library. I rarely think to look deeper within myself to interpret an answer. With DDR, however, that was exactly what we did.
Our schedules followed a similar pattern each day: wake up, do a DDR session with reflections from 10 AM -1 PM, break for lunch from 1 PM – 2:30 PM, do readings from 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM, sleep, rinse, and repeat. I was pleasantly surprised with how efficient DDR was at allowing me to formulate questions and reach conclusions. For example, during one session I had a question concerning whether I had gotten a good deal on a bike that I purchased earlier. Through working with that question during the session, I realized that I did not truly care about the bike. I was worried about whether or not I was making responsible, adult decisions as I got older.
The week also presented both Naomi and I with opportunities to facilitate DDR sessions and workshop our own techniques with Miller, Richter and occasionally guests. Some of the highlights of these sessions have been the experimentation of using charcoal to track movement and using each dancer’s personal data to inspire dance.
For me, DDR was most effectively used for exploration and to open discussion between me and other participants. Moving forward I plan on using DDR as a technique to focus and explore questions in topics related and not related to dance.
