Abstract
In this article I will discuss "Performance-As-Research," as a method of pedagogy, an approach to learning and problem solving, as a practice of inquiry and of making meaning in the performing arts, and as a conduit for students to develop physical, cognitive and affective proficiencies; in the context of a first year undergraduate dance repertory course. Over the past academic year, I have begun to collaborate with entering Bachelor of Fine Arts Dance majors at Temple University (where I am an assistant professor) to restage and perform Les Noces, (French; English: The Wedding; Russian: Свадебка, Svadebka), a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. Stravinsky subtitled the work "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices." The ballet, commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, was choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered in Paris in 1923. In my Repertory I course, the students and I have worked together to collaboratively craft a creative reimagining of the original work. This article will describe that process, and demonstrate the multiple avenues for teaching and learning that Performance-As-Research opens up in the pedagogical context of the higher education performing arts curriculum.