Dr. Grauer's Column - Studying Joy Dance Determinism

Studying Joy Dance Determinism
By Stuart Grauer

One of the great, developing programs at The Grauer School is dance. We have had various dance clubs and activities over the years—and of course, many dances—but a formal dance class and program was long anticipated. At last, with the hiring of Paloma Connolly, dance as a real curriculum arrived at Grauer.

We have often discussed the near-perfection of dance as a multidisciplinary educational activity—integrating mind, body, and, for many, spirit. Dance is not just movement; it is inquiry, expression, and knowledge-making. Revolving around this is a deep history and a whole field of research! And yet, in schools, dance is often left at the margins:

• Budget cuts and funding declines have shrunk arts programming in many districts in favor of subjects that are considered more measurable on standardized tests (even if they are not).
• The rising emphasis on STEM has edged out performing arts.
• Though it’s grown as a competitive sport, dance still struggles to be recognized as a core course of study.

But dance persists. Some schools now fold it into STEAM education, using movement to teach concepts in physics or even coding. But dance is of course more than an add-on to other fields. And as a field of academic inquiry, dance such as ballet and jazz is emerging with fresh depth and dimension.

So when a book came out full of methodological stories, research studies, and “onto-epistemological deliberations” all about dance, we knew we had to dig deeper. Dance Research Methodologies: Ethics, Orientations, and Practices, edited by Rosemary Candelario and Matthew Henley, presents dance as a rich field of study. It spans disciplines and communities of practice, inviting qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method approaches. It’s a full, grounding resource for those who want to understand dance education in all its layered meanings. I got through some but not all layers, so this is a some-not-all review…

Dance, like music and art, is for everyone! At Grauer, we are fortunate to have Paloma Connolly not only leading our dance program but also sharing a vision that lines up with philosophy expressed in the book. As Paloma writes:

“One of the (many) beauties of ballet is its attempt to synthesize or resolve contradictions. The ballet dancer embodies several, such as the contradiction between the seemingly effortless way a dancer moves and the grit and perseverance it takes to move that way; the dancer’s power and strength but also delicacy and grace; the weightless effect of a jump and the muscles and grounding needed to take off and land from that jump. The beauty is that students work through these contradictions in their bodies, rather than through intellectual exercises. For a dancer (and sometimes those viewing the dance), this process is an internal one, which results in an almost meditative experience.”

Paloma’s structure for the year builds on this contrast. First semester is ballet: measured, classical, elegant, paradoxical. The student works alone yet ends up in ensemble. They develop themselves individually, and then co-create. In Paloma’s words:

“Ballet class itself is typically an individual activity, however ballet becomes a collective art form through performance. This is not just because students take on a responsibility to the collective to learn their part well or because of how students bear witness to each other’s growth, but also because, in a performance, students are co-creating art. With each other, they become the art and, when performed in front of an audience, the audience itself becomes implicated in the art making.”

The second semester turns to jazz. “Jazz becomes a class about merry making,” Paloma writes. It is upbeat, expressive, rooted in pop music and personality. While grounded in the technique of ballet, jazz is where the dancers let loose. “It is also a class on dance making, as students end the semester creating or dancing in new student choreography.” In both semesters, students learn to resolve contradictions—form and freedom, tradition and innovation, structure and spirit.

These embodied experiences and even conflict resolution experiences do not just support students’ physical development. Research has shown that dance enhances executive function skills such as memory, attention, and spatial awareness, contributing to improved academic performance across subjects. Neurological studies show how dance engages multiple brain regions simultaneously, strengthening connections between analytical and creative thinking. Meanwhile, dance teaches collaboration, resilience, and self-expression—providing students a unique emotional outlet while building confidence and social connection—and fitness.

In this way, dance becomes a natural fit for our expeditionary learning model. It is studied by scientists through biomechanics, by mathematicians through rhythm and pattern, by historians through global traditions, and by literary thinkers through storytelling in movement. Scholars I read (or skimmed!) are now weaving psychology, sociology, political science, and environmental studies into dance, exploring how movement connects to experience, community, and place. I hope to see Paloma’s dancers on the field or in the nature preserve.

The anthology by Candelario and Henley repositions dance not as an extracurricular activity but as a real way to generate and share knowledge. Scholars challenge “Eurocentric paradigms,” gender stereotypes, and political stratifications, and they advocate for a plurality of orientations—embracing decolonization, feminism, and social transformation. All that! [1]

These are huge questions, but here at The Grauer School, we can approach them through joy. We don’t need to solve every contradiction or justify every motion. To me, the great life learning has been this: once we simply accept the permanent contradiction, the fact that there will always be conflict, the conflict seems to go away. Now it’s just a paradox, and we can smile at it—we’re dancing.  

Put way more simply: our students dance because, as Paloma puts it, “they’re having a blast.” Dance is sometimes a radical act. And sometimes it is simply an expression of presence and lightness. More reason even to dance all by yourself. True confessions: I am extrapolating some of this musing from my life as a surfer and skier, my main dances, in the hope that you will recognize your own dance, whatever it is.

In a time when nearly every human act is viewed through a political or economic lens—where riding an e-bike, going on social media, or attending a class can be construed as a political stance—it is tempting to read everything as either political determination (who gets what) or economic determination (who profits), if not as onto-epistemological deliberations! Dance transcends all that.

So today, let’s coin a new term: Joy Determinism.

Joy Determinism suggests that sometimes people move and create not for gain or position, but simply to live, to feel, to connect by expressing something beyond words—that we interpret events in terms of those simple impacts. We are free! What if we looked at the whole world in terms of what can bring us—and the whole of creation—something like joy? The joy of leaping, the beauty of synchrony, and the individuality within a shared rhythm that Paloma describes—these are not secondary to education; they are education. Because dance, as a formal discipline and as free, creative expression—both—teaches us how to be whole—or at least to practice being whole. Isn’t that the most radical act of all, if we can get there, even for a few fleeting moments a week?

[1] For those of you who think dance has never been a political act, check out the history of the Waltz (a “revolution in motion” in late 18th–early 19th century Europe—partners actually touched); the Charleston (1920s USA—youth, races, and women all moving freely; banned in many schools and dance halls; the Twist (1960s—youth autonomy, racial crossover; considered obscene, unchaperoned, and un-Christian in the U.S. and abroad); and Traditional or Indigenous dances (banned and feared by colonizers).

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