Artistic supervision as reference in the development of aesthetic approaches to pedagogical supervision

The aim of the performance under study was to create a poetic and playful performance for toddlers with three performers: a dancer, a clown and a musician. In the production, multimodality (Kress, 2010; van Leeuwen, 1999; Rustad, 2010) can be understood as the main artistic tool. A choreographic guidance close to a critical, cultural and postmodern dance pedagogy (Østern, 2009; Green, 2007; Hämäläinen, 2004; Shapiro, 1998; Marques, 1998) as epistemological stance led to a collaborative production process. The production also takes part in a discussion about what art for toddlers should be like (The Glitterbird project, see http://www.dansdesign.com/gb/; Hovik, 2011 in print). The two researchers in the project dialogue have studied the production process from different research positions, and with different research aims. Tone Pernille Østern, who has the double role of the choreographer and researcher in the project, has studied the characteristics of the collaborative choreographic process. Her aim of study is the different stages and turning points in a collaborative, choreographic process. How does the choreographic material float back and forth between choreographer and performers before finding its final form? How does awareness about toddlers as target group influence the collaborative process and the choreographic decisions made? Anna-Lena Østern’s aim of study is supervision in artistic, collaborative processes. She aims at vitalizing and renewing the prevailing supervision discourse in teacher education by challenging it with more concrete and bodily founded supervision discourses in the arts. She asks: What contributions to development of an aesthetic approach to supervision might be identified in a choreographer’s supervision in a collaborative, artistic project?