Close Encounters: Dance Partners for Creativity

In this rapidly-changing world, young people need to be flexible, imaginative and resilient. They must be able to use their creativity holistically and appropriately in everything they do, constantly engaging with others. Close Encounters is an illustration of how creativity and the special relationships that facilitate it can be nurtured through dance within education.

Underpinning the book is an intensive two-year qualitative research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. The authors and their collaborating researchers argue that dance-based creative partnership should be given greater space in the curriculum because of its ethically-grounded and humanizing practice, describing examples of how this is done. Such dance-based partnerships have a place in influencing arguments for the kinds of 21st century educational futures that will have to be made possible.

With policy makers and practitioners facing questions of what is and what might be, the book offers enquiry and research-based ideas about dance-based partnership’s role in current and future education. It will greatly enrich the thinking of practitioners, researchers and policy makers interested in arts practices and educational futures.