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Content by Kelly Doremus Stuart, designed by Angela King

About a month ago, Gia Kourlas wrote in the New York Times about the blurring of words used to describe dance that is not classical. This is dance that at one time might be have been referred to as "modern." Some of the pioneers of "modern" could include the likes of Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, Dorothy Humphrey and others.

And then in post-modern times (I'm not sure exactly when that transition happened--just like the confusion of when we had officially entered the 21st century: January 1, 2000 or January 1, 2001?), the label of "contemporary" was picked up. As Kourlas wrote, "the word contemporary was a sterile if functional way to describe work that wasn't traditional modern dance or ballet." From this we can infer that our post-modern sensibility had rendered "modern" dance as "traditional." In fact, modern dance had become as traditional as classical dance. I'm shaking my head with my cheeks slapping back and forth like Curly Howard after being bonked on the noggin' by a brick from overhead.

Kourlas goes on to bemoan how the term "contemporary" has now come to no longer refer to an "artistic movement but a way of dancing that generally includes unison formations, swift kicks, rolls to the floor and cheap sentimentality." It's the stuff that is now seen on reality television series devoted to dance.

Shoot. I was just getting the hang of the modern/contemporary divide.

The solution to this dilemma of how to approach what is contemporary, what is modern and maybe most importantly, what is good, rests in the idea and sensibility of "choreography." It is an ontological reduction. Kourlas claims choreography as "the only word that really holds it all in: the questions, the craft, the imagination, the design, the multimedia and, finally, the showbiz."

I bring this up because I am still struggling with how to approach my "methodology" for researching Maxine Greene's work. It is an interpretive inquiry. It is heuristic. It is arts-based. One of my solutions is to call my research methods "practice" instead of methodology. For me, "practice" is more closely related to the artistic process and the mode of aesthetic inquiry.

But I'm not sure how to refer to the style of practice I will be using. Part of the dilemma is that it is an ongoing process.  I don't know for certain what it will look like in the end or the scope of elements it will use in its progression. What term could possibly capture the "showbiz" of what I am attempting?

I tell my students each day that this is the risk involved in the creative process: this ambiguity of form and structure and end results. I tell them it takes courage to engage in such an open environment where boundaries aren't certain.

With my own earnest advice, I shall simply do and see where it takes me. The labels will emerge in practice.