8 - A composite approach to movement analysis for embodied methodology

Summary

Introduction

This chapter will present a composite method of analysis for embodied movement data, developed in the first author's doctoral project (in progress at time of writing), which considered attitudes towards the body in English primary schools. This project sought to understand embodied experiences and their pedagogical implications, suggesting that heightened embodied awareness might support a more perceptive and responsive pedagogy. It drew heavily on the first author's career as a dancer and aerialist specialising in creative movement. Residencies in three schools over the course of nine months consisted of weekly, one- hour sessions of creative movement play with at least two classes in each school, over the course of six weeks in the pilot school and the first enquiry school, and ten weeks in the second enquiry school.

Children were mainly aged 7 to 11 and attended in whole- class groups. Class teachers supported, sometimes joining in and sometimes observing the movement. Data generated included: interviews with staff, video of the children moving using both high- quality video and infrared cameras, and drawings and voice- recorded comments made by the children at the end of the sessions. These different data types were used to triangulate and cross reference during later stages of analysis, which are not discussed in this chapter.

Theoretical foundations

Extending and adapting Rhythmanalysis (Lefebvre, 2004), we used creative dance practice for non- verbal interpretation of the intangible experience of the learner. Analysing primary, embodied, movement data through a series of dance- led lenses avoids immediately grappling with the limitations of translating movement into language, focusing instead on the perceptual level of these experiences and opening the possibility of deeper understanding. However, this approach does then consider what is entailed in the move to reflect and define through words, mindful that this translation will necessarily be occurring in research on embodiment, but also that words can usefully enrich and then invoke as data the movement language that is generated. The question is not then whether reflection and analysis through words should happen at all, but rather how and at what stage.