Lives transformed through dance: a theoretical foundation of the Dance United Methodology

Particularly since the late 1990s, within the socio-political agenda of New Labour in the United Kingdom, dance has been increasingly mobilised as an instrument of social inclusion, often accompanied by claims of transformative impact. Despite numerous project reports and evaluation studies attesting to its social outcomes, the conceptual and theoretical foundation of these transformative processes remains underdeveloped.

This doctoral research views dance—particularly contemporary dance—as a powerful catalyst for personal and social change and examines the Dance United Methodology as a specific case of community dance in the context of social inclusion. Within an intrinsic qualitative case study, empirical analysis of both documents and interviews identifies nine methodological core concepts and establishes their dynamic interrelationships in a theoretical model. The subsequent theoretical integration with transformative learning theory not only bridges scholarly discourse and heuristic conceptualisations, but above all demonstrates the transformative potential of dance as an aesthetic, social, and embodied practice of knowing and meaning-making.

Ellen Steinmüller is a professionally trained contemporary dancer, a qualified Dance Movement Psychotherapist and experienced Community Dance artist. With nearly twenty years of professional practice, her doctoral research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München develops the theoretical foundation for dance as transformative learning at the intersection of art and pedagogy.