Movement and expressiveness

Educational dance for students with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

This   article   is   the   result   of   research   on   dance   and   education   that investigated the bodily trials of students with intellectual disabilities. It pressuposes   that   one   can   develop   expressivity   by   using   dancing movements in space and time in school and that dance finds ways to enhance creative so as to dissociate the practice based on 'follow the master' or 'do as I do', which privileges standardized choreographies with television references and does cope with the subjectivity within student's creation and responses. It is a pedagogical study guided by art and that sought not to neglect the references in dance produced culturally and perceived in the context of the investigation. The research is based on the theoretical   approach   of   Rudolf   Laban   on   the   movement   for   the construction   of   a   proposal   of   educational   dance   for   students   with intellectual   disabilities.   Laban’s   theory   helped   to   shape   the   thematic categories for this work: Body, Space, Group and Creation which were established to analyze expressiveness within the experiments that focused on the perception of the body in the relationship of the body with the space and the creative process of one’s body movement. In this context, the role of art for meaningful learning, was highlighted, whose exercise of otherness permeated the understanding of coexistence with differences. The methodological possibility presented is that of action research, which offers support  for reflecting  and transforming  challenging pedagogical actions. It was perceived the construction of meanings provoked by the dance in the interaction with the other and in the construction of an accessible   practice   that   values   the   presence   of   each   body,   in   its expressive possibilities.