Dance on the page: Exploring picturebook dance expressions through a model of dance literacy

Abstract

This dissertation explores dance within four picturebooks, Mirror (Lee, 2003), Flora
and the Flamingo (Idle, 2013), Dança (Fazenda, 2015), and Yukkuri and Jojoni (Arai,
1991) in relation to dance literacy. Acknowledging an abundant presence of dance in
children’s media and texts, this study proposes an aesthetic approach to analysis of
illustrated dance through an educational model of dance literacy. The aim is to consider
the potential of dance in picturebooks to engage dance literacies on and through the
page spread.
Children’s literature scholarship on movement illustration and dance in picturebooks is
reviewed, recognizing research approaches through social-cultural perspectives, critical
theory, and aesthetic analysis. Situated in aesthetic analysis, this study considers an
additional, interdisciplinary approach drawing on literacy studies. After reviewing
developing conceptions of dance literacy, the Dance Literacy Model for Schools, DLMS
(Jusslin, 2019) is applied as a framework to guide analysis of the texts.
The methodology considers concepts of creating dance, viewing dance, and
aesthetically experiencing dance through the DLMS dimension, Dance as an art form
and form of expression. An interdisciplinary, aesthetic approach to analysis draws on
elements of picturebook composition as outlined by Sipe (2001) and elements of dance
as conceptualized in U.S. dance education practices.
The texts were examined with attention to illustrations of characters dancing within
isolated page spreads and across multiple page spreads. Findings observe: kinaesthetic
gaps between illustrated movements as potential sites of reader co-creation of dance;
spatial design affordances positioning the reader as a dance viewer; and illustration
techniques representing multisensory, aesthetic experience through dance.
The study finds potential in the texts’ dance expressions to afford experiences of
creating and viewing dance relevant to dance literacies, and demonstrates an illustrative
pattern of portraying aesthetic dance experience through levitation. Continued study of
picturebook dance expressions is encouraged to further explore pathwasy of bodily
knowledge and learning within the transliterate spaces of picturebooks.