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Karen Schupp and Sherrie Barr eds., "Stories We Dance / Stories We Tell: Essays on Dance in Higher Education" (McFarland, 2025)
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- [00:01]
Renee Garris
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Renee Garris
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Karen Shoup
We heard you.
- [01:01]
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- [01:16]
Sherry Barr
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:20]
Renee Garris
And welcome back to New Books Network. I'm your host today, Renee Garris. And I am joined by two authors, Karen Shoup, who is a dance professor at Arizona State University. And her research commitments includes ethics and equity in dance education, post secondary dance education and dance competition culture. She is the recipient of the National Dance Education Organization's Outstanding Dance education researcher award, NDIO's Ruth Lobel Murray Book Award and the Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance Education. And she is joined today by Sherry Barr, professor of dance who taught in a range of dance programs in post secondary institutions, including as a Fulbright lecturer in Portugal for over 40 years before retiring. Her scholarship examines the juncture of dance pedagogy, somatics and critical an intersection that now leads her to research the shifting terrain of higher education dance programs in the U.S. so ladies, welcome to both of you to the New Books Network Performing Arts Channel. And I would like to just open the floor to you and Sheri, I'll start with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background and why you became a dancer, why you became a dance educator?
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Sherry Barr
Thank you. Thank you for inviting us. It's really an honor to be with you. I started dancing when I was A little kid, you know, my parents sent me to the local synagogue, and I just fell in love with dancing. It was very much creative dance, sort of Isadora Duncan style. And I decided I wanted to go to college to do that, and I went to college. I went to graduate school, and I thought I wanted to perform. And like so many people, I turned to teaching to pay off debts. And once I started teaching, I. I immediately got a. A job in higher education. I was very fortunate. Once I started teaching, I fell in love with teaching, and I sort of took off from there. I. I kept expanding. I went to different programs because I was always curious about what else was out there. And then the more I taught, the more curious I got about the research side of it. It's like, oh, I want to understand more what I'm doing. I went to conferences. I saw people. You know, I heard people doing this, and it just. Something clicked in my brain, so to speak, like, oh, I could do this, and this would help my teaching. So it wasn't necessarily two separate tracks. It was how my research supported my teaching and vice versa. And it just kept growing in lots of different ways until I retired.
- [04:17]
Renee Garris
That's so beautiful. And your time in Portugal, that must have been just an amazing addition to everything.
- [04:25]
Sherry Barr
Yes, it was. And it was an incredible experience, and I know how fortunate I am, and I. Yeah.
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Renee Garris
Oh, very nice. Oh, and, Karen, tell us about your journey.
- [04:37]
Karen Shoup
So, first, I want to echo Sherry's excitement about being here. I'm really happy to be here on this podcast talking about dance in our book, so thank you for the invitation. So I grew up in a competitive dance studio in the 1980s and 90s, so competition. Dance culture was quite different then, and my mom was one of the teachers. So I actually started teaching dance when I was 13. And I don't want to say it was just meant to be because, you know, I made active decisions. But I caught the teaching bug early. I went to college for dance, and I recall very vividly this moment. I was in a meeting with one of my professors, and it suddenly dawned on me, like, oh, people teach dance in college. Maybe that's what I want to do. And I've since learned that that's a very unusual thing for a college freshman to want to do. I didn't actively pursue that because, again, it's a very unusual thing for a college freshman to want to do. But when I look back over time, I can see how the places where I was happiest were when I was learning about dance, both in terms of physical moving, but also thinking about it. And I can see how that curiosity for understanding how we learn dance has just. Following that curiosity has just led to numerous opportunities, including this one that I'm sitting in right now.
- [06:07]
Renee Garris
Yes, absolutely. So for our listeners, our two editors today, both Sherry and Karen, have edited a volume. It's called Stories We Dance and Stories We Essays on Dance and Higher Education. And the editors can see what my listeners can't that I had annotated this book. I have so many questions and so many delightful comments. There was. This book really brought me. It brought to my mind so many things that are important today. I am a former dancer. I no longer dance. I teach a different discipline, more cultural history, if you will. But I loved the approach to this book. So what was the impetus for you? And we could. Karen, we can start with you and then go to Sherry, or you can talk to one another. Why did you decide this book? What brought you to this?
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Karen Shoup
So Sheri and I are in conversation about many things related to dance education all the time. So that's important context for how this story unfolds. I was working on a project, another book project that I was editing, looking at the future of performing arts in higher education. And I loved that book project as well. But as I was doing that and learning more about performing arts and higher education, my heart was missing, focusing solely on dance. I came to Sherry and I said, I have this idea. I know that we talk about dance in higher education all the time. What do you think? But it was really broad. And then, Sheri, if I remember correctly, you had the idea for the autoethnographic approach.
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Sherry Barr
Yes. And so when we talked about the possibilities for this book, Karen had some ideas, and she was giving me specific examples. And I kept hearing people's stories. And that's why we got to the autoethnography. And from there it just blossomed. I also think what happened is we began with stories, and so the stories kept feeding one another. And I think another important aspect to the impetus for the book is the decision to invite people rather than having an open call, because that helped us. Harry, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I felt that that helped us understand what we were going for more and, like, why we're inviting this person and not that person type of thing.
- [08:52]
Karen Shoup
Yeah. It was important to us from the beginning to think about the range of experiences teachers have in higher education. So the experiences I'm having today are very different from somebody who is in year one, which is very different from A person with expertise in a different dance style. So that also was important to us thinking about the invitational approach. And I also will just say that editing a book is a really fantastic way to learn more about a topic. And so, again, I think that curiosity and wanting to learn, it was like, what do we want to learn about and who do we want to learn with? That drove a lot of our decision making.
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Renee Garris
That's fantastic. Yes.
- [09:35]
Sherry Barr
I'll just add one more thing to that. And this almost goes back to the first question. I think that Karen and I have a lot of overlays, but we also have a lot of differences in terms of, like, she was competition, I was Isadora Duncan.
- [09:49]
Renee Garris
But there's.
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Sherry Barr
There's also an interesting generational difference. And so that helped us understand the trajectory of higher education, and that helped us understand where we wanted to go with our invites as well, if that makes sense. Invitations to different authors.
- [10:10]
Renee Garris
Absolutely. Absolutely. And for our listeners that we hope will pick this book up, you should know it's not about one discipline. It covers a wide range of dance in a wide range of topics. As I said to our editors before we began recording that, for me, this book was like a love letter to this art that we all love dance, but also recognizing some of the issues that we need to work through, some of the toxicity that that comes from love that isn't emotionally dealt with. And this book does a beautiful job. I did not know that you had really looked for specific authors, but that's. That was a brilliant way. And our listeners, once you. You read the book, you will understand that there are difficulties with accessibility for dancers. Whether that's language, whether that's performance space, whether that is costuming. There are a number of challenges and growth for dancers within this book. So with that said, what changes have you seen in the last, I don't know, decade or last couple of years in dance? Because you're talking Karen specifically, you came from competitive dance, and that has really dramatically changed. So maybe if you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the dance world and then in the academia world and then. And then to you, Sherry, this is.
- [11:43]
Karen Shoup
A huge question, so I will. My answer will be incomplete. I just want to add that little disclaimer. But I think in the last five to 10 years, we are seeing a strong desire to find ways to teach dance that honor each person's identity and how individuals relate to each other, how individuals create a community as a whole that can include space for different interests, different dance forms, different experiences, but still have some cohesion. There is a. Historically, there's always been a balancing in dance and higher ed between is this lifetime learning, is this vocational training. And that means different things in different dance forms. So I think there's been a real desire to expand who dances what dance forms are included in higher ed. And every time you introduce something new that raises new questions, it brings forward new observations about why things have been done the way that they've been done before, and do they need to continue that way in order to keep things moving forward in a way that, again, is respectful of the individuals in the room? And if we think about it, largely for a long time, dance in higher education has been grappling with this idea of how to keep bringing dance education into a humanizing perspective, right? So that the whole person is educated through dance. The whole person can be their whole selves, and that we can think more broadly about. Again, I'm going to say what dances, who dances for, who's doing the dancing.
- [13:42]
Sherry Barr
I want to add to that. I want to pick up on what Karen talked about in terms of the humanizing perspective as well as the global nature of it. And dance higher ed has changed too. So higher ed and it goes through trends. Higher ed sometimes will be more structured and want their programs, their disciplines to adhere to that structure. And then sometimes it's more open. So dance, I feel, in the last 10 years or so, is still reckoning with how to be inclusive in terms of its courses, in terms of its programs, in terms of who it accepts to study, but it's also how it's taught. So we can't. I think we can't. For me, I can't talk about this aspect of it without talking about the. How it's done. So that. That's really important to me. And I think, to go back to the specifics of the book, this might be interesting to you, Renee. We initially thought the book would be in three sections. Remember that, Karen? We thought there would be a pedagogy section so people would dress their pedagogy, that there would be a leadership section and then there would be a global section. And that informed who we were inviting to. But the more we thought about it and the more we got drafts from different. The different drafts from our authors, we realized we couldn't make those separations. And that too, speaks to how dance has changed, that we can't talk about pedagogy without talking about leadership. We can't talk about leadership without bringing in the global awareness of what is dance. So that's all part of the excitement that I found in doing the book that, oh, it's not just me that has trouble making those distinctions. We're not alone. And it was exciting to encourage the authors to allow that to happen, to go past their initial lens. And I think. So everyone learned from that.
- [16:06]
Renee Garris
Absolutely. And I will see that, really, one chapter did inform the next as I was. As I was going through it. So I love how you finally made the decision to lay out the different chapters, because I'm glad I read it sequentially. Although I'm sure you could break it up in different ways.
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Renee Garris
But I liked the way you had the book sort of spelled out. Yeah. So in considering, as you read the essays and you got them ready for a book, were there moments that were enlightening for you that you saw things from a different perspective you had not considered before? Sheri, I'll start with you this time. Yeah.
- [16:44]
Sherry Barr
Well, each one. Each essay had that moment, and each essay had that moment for. From the first draft to the last draft, which when there were a lot in between. You know, I'm thinking about Kristen Horrigan's. About Contact Improv. It really made me consider the touch factor and how, you know, on a scholarly level, how that's changed. Right. Sort of acknowledging that. And on another level, personally, how I. How I changed as an educator. Where did I start becoming aware of that as an issue? So that's an example of something for me. And then I knew some of the authors beforehand. I knew some of them better than others. And so the ones that I knew well, like Sarah Ebert, it was really incredible for me to sort of hear her journey, you know, to read her journey and to get the sense of her commitment to writing. So it was interesting to me, you know, in that. To see how one can commit to dance in a lot of different ways.
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Renee Garris
Right.
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Sherry Barr
You know, and then with other ones, I'm thinking about Thomas's. I'm thinking about House and Davids. Just, oh, I never thought. I mean, they're parking houses. Parking story. Just every time I read that and think about it, it still blows me away. Now every time I go look for a parking space, I think about that story. It's sort of in the back of my head. It sounds so silly, but it's quite real for me. And with Fens there, I learned a lot about ballet history. I mean, there was just that scholarly learning. So each one was. Each one was unique. I could go through each. Each one and talk about it that way, but I don't Want to hog the time from Karen.
- [18:56]
Karen Shoup
So since Sherry did such a great job talking about the chapters individually, I think I'm kind of. I feel like I'm in conversation still with the book as a whole, and that was a frequent thing that was happening as we were editing the book. Sometimes I feel like I'm having conversations in my mind, like in the actual moment of making a decision, either teaching or leadership. And then suddenly two chapters will pop up, and it's almost like. Then there's like this imaginary conversation happening. Because I would say that every chapter made me pause and think, oh, have I contributed to that roadblock? Have I contributed to this part of the culture that needs repair? And usually once I have that question, I find out the answer is yes, and I can do better. So I would just say it's in for me. Even though I think oftentimes you can think like, oh, well, you're in the editorship and the editor means you're a certain expert. That very much was not the case for this book. Each author is an expert, and I'm grateful for what I was able to learn from each one of them, individually as well as collectively.
- [20:14]
Renee Garris
So I want to echo what you both said. There were so many moments in this book that I thought, did I contribute? Did I say? Did I? Was I part of that? Without being aware? So I really appreciate the honesty that the authors came with. And there were. You have a couple of authors, I believe, one South America, Brazil, who talked about two languages, like, teaching in a language that was not her first language, and a student making a comment to her about, like, dance being in a second language. And I know I've said something very similar, like, oh, I wish I had the same muscles that you do. I. I'm used to this, not this. And so it's. I, I want to appreciate all body types and all dance. But yes, I. There were moments that I saw myself in this and not in a positive light. So I'm doubly grateful that the authors were brave enough to. To say this and that we can sit with that and say we can do better. Absolutely.
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- [22:54]
Sherry Barr
Ask about the enlightenment and picking up on both what you and Karen said, I think there's something about autoethnography that invites people to be vulnerable.
- [23:08]
Renee Garris
Yes.
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Sherry Barr
And so there was also a degree of trust that developed through the project, the trust that they could that authors could reveal themselves. And so I learned a lot about writing as well. I just, I think that's part of the editorship that sometimes people forget to talk about that. It was a constant learning experience for me in terms of content, in terms of what I need to do better, and also about research in general. It was really quite amazing project in that way.
- [23:50]
Karen Shoup
Yeah. I want to of course echo his I think along with the vulnerability, autoethnography requires a sense of curiosity. I also think that that was something I'm thankful that our authors were willing to be vulnerable and then to use that vulnerability in relationship to curiosity help all of us learn more about dance. And I don't want to speak on behalf of the authors, but there were more than one that indicated, oh, I learned so much more about like what matters to me teaching dance. What matters to me about dance in higher ed through writing this chapter.
- [24:30]
Renee Garris
That's fantastic. And I love that not all of your authors were dance and dance teachers, dance professors. That you also had graduate students and that in the mix. So there was more than. It's not a binary. It's not either or. There are lots of facets for us to approach dance and dance learning and dance instruction and higher ed. All of the levels of it. Yes. Yeah. My next question for you and I wonder if how how have you seen any full productions after the publication of this book and have any of the productions changed? Do you think some of your authors, because of writing this, have been able to bring some of their ideas to fruition? It may still be too new of a book.
- [25:23]
Sherry Barr
This is not about the authors, but this is about just the general climate of the world and dance right now. I went to a concert this past weekend. I'll mention the group. I think it's fine. It was urban bush women who I think are phenomenal. Just, just phenomenal. And they did one of the pieces that I've seen before which I always thought was great and it was interesting. I'm doing air quotes. Interesting to me how this score was changed, the text was changed to reflect what's going on today. And so I see productions like that happening and that's. That's really interesting to me. So I think everyone is really sensitive to the world right now. I think, I think there's also. I'm talking professionally, but this comes out in a couple of the chapters, essays as well, that the paradigm of ballet and modern is no longer acceptable. It's. It's just not acceptable. And, and I see that and that's exciting, I think, I feel.
- [26:42]
Karen Shoup
Yeah. What came to mind for me, which is why I paused is I see a lot of student work and I feel students of opinions and I feel that increasingly they are courageous, comfortable, depending on the person sharing those opinions through dance in a way that I don't really feel happened for my generation. So that's been very. I've been curious about that and I think it's really. It says something that they feel confident about identifying an issue that they care about and using the art form that they're super passionate about to learn more about that issue and then communicate those ideas. And I would say that's across a range of dance forms as well.
- [27:31]
Renee Garris
I think about. So the city where I am, which is a second tier cities, capital city, but a second tier city, our state ballet has of course the Giselle, that's going to be for Valentine's Day and of course the Nutcracker. But the studio productions are very different. And the universities that surround the city, the groups that are coming in on tour, we are seeing a lot of different forms of dance that are outside of the traditional European ballet or European Modern. So I do see the universities, the dance groups are not necessarily connected to the university, but are performing there and there are getting to do more experimental things. And again, I am in Richmond, Virginia, so I'm right next to Washington D.C. which has large productions. We're not very far from Philadelphia or from New York, which of course have very large productions. So to see students or smaller groups on tour at our different universities really does say that there is a change, a change coming as how do we make that profitable? Right. Like, how do we get that? And the tickets here sell out, like, the crowds here are hungry for those changes.
- [28:46]
Sherry Barr
I think that goes back to what Karen was saying earlier about who gets to dance, you know, and what gets. And what is dance? And it's also who gets to see dance. And so I notice more differences when I go to a one university, it's not too local, but one university to see their dance performances. And it's interesting to me to see the range of students now that are in the audience and their range of engagement. That's very exciting to me. I think there's more willing. I've seen a more willingness to break the fourth wall.
- [29:31]
Renee Garris
Yes.
- [29:31]
Sherry Barr
In performances.
- [29:33]
Renee Garris
So I haven't thought about this since you just said that. Do you think that some of the social media, like TikTok, we're getting to see, like, really incredible things. Do you think that that's helped break down some of the barrier and increase interest from students or other social media platforms? It doesn't have to be that. I was just thinking the video format.
- [29:53]
Karen Shoup
It definitely allows students much more access. You know, I know that we have some students here who are watching dance on social media to learn more about their dance forms. Right. So it's not just a sort of, it's, it's not a casual engagement. It's like they're looking to see, like, what are these people who I admire, what are they doing? What do I need to learn to, like, you know, do the things that they're doing? I don't know how much that though. I don't know how much inherently social media allows us to learn about dance forms that we're not already drawn to, which is, if I could figure out the algorithm for that, that would be fantastic. But that's not my area of expertise.
- [30:41]
Renee Garris
Well, I admit the, the touch improv, I had to go look that up. I wasn't, I wasn't entirely sure what the, the author was saying. So I went and looked up a YouTube video and I'm like, okay, now I know, I know what that means. So, yeah, like, to have that access that we didn't have as growing up can really help inform and hopefully allow more permissive, like, I, I, I do want to engage in this form or know that form is not. Not where I see my body in this space. So, yeah.
- [31:11]
Karen Shoup
I meant to ask you this earlier.
- [31:14]
Renee Garris
How did y' all decide on the title of this book? Stories We Dance. Stories We Tell. Oh, I see Some Smiles. How was that?
- [31:20]
Karen Shoup
It was a very iterative process. How's that? Lots of back and forth between Sheri and I, and then some back and forth with the publisher. So I am not confident this was the first name we put forward. I know it wasn't the second to last, but I think Sheri's ready to talk, so I'm gonna be quiet for a second.
- [31:47]
Sherry Barr
The primary topic of the primary title. Stories We Dance. Stories We Tell. The publisher didn't have any problems with that. Karen and I often will say to one another, I'm not great with titles. So we kept going. We. We kept going back and forth on that. I had to feel that I needed to give myself permission to put a slash in the primary. It was the title that first title came with. Oh, We Are Telling Stories. And so that was really important to us. The publisher really insisted that essays be in the. The title. The secondary title. But it was. It was a process. I think Karen is an incredible collaborator. So she's really willing to go back and forth with me and lots of. Lots of possibilities.
- [32:45]
Renee Garris
So when in your relationship with the authors of this book, have they been able to collaborate outside of the book? Do if you know of that, have they been able to do any creative projects together? Together?
- [33:00]
Karen Shoup
We did some panels together. The National Dance Education Organization's annual conference, I think a year, maybe two years ago. So that was one way that the authors were able to collaborate and come together in real time. And I think some connections have been made since then. But because everybody's from different geographic regions. And it's kind of hard to know what those connections have led to. But Sheri and I are actively working on a project with two of the authors. We are working on another autoethnographic. A collaborative autoethnographic exploration of what excellence means in higher education in relationship to dance.
- [33:47]
Renee Garris
Wonderful. That was gonna be one of my final questions. But I'm glad you said that now. Cause that tells me that. That what. Your project still has legs, that it's still moving. And that's great. Sherry, what else are you working on? Anything else, or.
- [34:05]
Sherry Barr
I'm still exploring. I'm really interested in what is technique, so I'm exploring that. And this book, sort of as a sideline, has really gotten me interested in what is it to be a developing editor. So with one of the authors of this book, as well as a different researcher, I sort of read their drafts and comment on what's clear and what's not clear. And I, for the most, I enjoy doing that. I mean, that's really been informative for me and it keeps my brain going. And I just submitted a proposal for the Dance Studies Association Conference. So we'll see. It's. And Karen and I are both very involved in. Well, Karen's editor in chief and I'm associate editor for the Journal of Dance Education. And so that. That too keeps our. Our investment not just in dance, not just in higher education, but through K through 12 as well. And. And that keeps us going in terms of considering what is dance, who is dance for, and how to move the field forward.
- [35:21]
Renee Garris
Okay, my final question for you ladies. If you had to give one piece of advice to a young dancer today, and I'll tell you what my piece of advice would be at the end. I'll let you go first. What would that be? What would you say to either dancers or dance instructors since you have now this knowledge and we have matured in our roles as leaders, as dancers, as choreographers, we have matured. What advice would you give to a younger dancer or someone who's thinking about a career in this?
- [35:52]
Karen Shoup
My advice would be to stay curious and to stay grounded. Because I know for myself this is not where I thought I would be when I was graduating college, but it is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And when I look back, I can see how every single opportunity I had actually lays out pretty logically and sequentially to get here. Even though at the time it didn't feel like that. But I feel like I have always loved dancing and just connecting to that love of dancing and learning more about dance and dancing then actually allows you more opportunities to see where to see what you attune with. So, because I feel like I've had a. I've worn a series of different labels under that big umbrella of dance. And some of the labels I wasn't anticipating, but yet those were the ones that actually felt the best. So it would be, you know, to stay curious, but also stay grounded, know who you are, know what matters to you, and know that dance is important and that the world would be a better place if everyone was dancing.
- [37:01]
Renee Garris
Absolutely. Absolutely. Sherry.
- [37:04]
Sherry Barr
I echo the word curious, I would say, also to add to that notion, to be willing to take risks, to not necessarily follow the expected path. I'm thinking about my own journey. You know, leaving 10 year jobs to take another 10 year job. I think there's, there's no guarantees in life. Now I'm going to sound like the old person here. There's no guarantees in life and to do what feels right for you, but also to keep asking questions, which goes to the curiosity to keep asking questions and, and not let anyone tell you what is, what's failing, you know, what is failure as opposed to what is success. I think one of the things that I've learned, I learned through one particular author was don't judge the COVID You know, don't judge someone what they look like. You know, my generation of dance was like, you have to look a certain way. And I think I really, I keep struggling to let that go, to be quite truthful. But it's very exciting when I do let it go. And so I would like to encourage everyone to do that and to echo Karen for everyone to dance.
- [38:24]
Renee Garris
Absolutely. So my answer is actually a combination of the two of yours, which is yes, stay grounded, know who you are, and be confident in your dance. And don't listen to the no's. Don't listen to the you're not good enough, you're not tall enough, you're not whatever enough. You are enough. And be confident. Like get that noise out of your head and your dance will flourish. That would be my advice. So, yeah, it sounds maybe our, our age has brought us to a place of enlightenment. And hopefully we can all guide dancers and students and others in our lives to that place. Yes. Okay, ladies, is there anything else that you would like to say before we end today?
- [39:08]
Karen Shoup
Just another.
- [39:09]
Sherry Barr
Thank you for inviting us.
- [39:11]
Renee Garris
Thank you so much.
- [39:13]
Sherry Barr
Thank you.
- [39:14]
Karen Shoup
This has been wonderful. This book, it really does occupy a special place in my heart. So I just wanted to acknowledge that as well. I think Barry and I are so grateful to have been in conversation with these authors over the years that it took to bring the book to life. And thank you for giving us the space to talk about it a little bit more.
- [39:38]
Renee Garris
Absolutely. And please, when the next volume comes out, please let me know. We'd love to have you back on the network. It doesn't matter how long it takes because we all know these book projects are not done in six months or a year or two years. These take some time, but I would love to have you both back.
- [39:53]
Sherry Barr
Thank you.
- [39:55]
Renee Garris
Well, thank you everyone for tuning into New Books Network and Performing Arts and we will listen again soon.