Publications by authors named "Pirkko Markula"

This paper explores how embodied writing can inform teaching, learning, and research presentation in graduate-level dance education in a kinesiology faculty. The focus is on a graduate dance course "The Dancing Body in Motion", which combines the anatomical analysis of the physical body, social theory, and lived dance experiences to promote more embodied and holistic teaching and learning. The authors, an instructor and a student of the course, share their experiences and reflections on the course through an embodied presentation of a dialogue that combines the instructor's lecture notes, the student's learning journal entries, and their reflections both separately and in conversation with each other.

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Professional dancers typically retire before age 40. Although the physical requirements for dance performance are often considered the reason for retirement, there is an increasing number dance researchers who demonstrate that the idealization of youthfulness on the stage is also a result of complex cultural, social, and economic realities and as such, in need of critique. As a group of mature women dancers who continue to perform, we aim to critique the idealization of youthfulness as a form of ageism in professional dance.

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In this article, we draw upon the experiences of mature recreational dancers who participated in classes facilitated by a professional ballet company and catered to older adults. Moving with 11 women through a 10-week ballet course, and immersing ourselves in the empirical material, we recognized opportunities for broadening our analysis of aging dancing bodies. Inspired by a Latourian understanding of bodies and a recent new materialist turn in humanities and social sciences, we became curious about the ways that the women were being affected by their experiences in ballet.

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