Title: Being and becoming adult dancers: Experiences of engaging and participating in dance as a recreational activity
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Shannon Bredin
Committee Member: Dr. Barbara Weber, Dr. Erica Bennett, Sandra Mathison
Chair: Dr. Desmond McEwan
Abstract: Recreational dance is a meaningful activity that attracts participants across the lifespan. Lifelong engagement in dance can follow many trajectories that include continuous and discontinuous participation as well as taking up dance as a new activity in adulthood. Adults of all ages cite enjoyment, relaxation, self-expression, physical fitness, and social connection as reasons for engaging in recreational dance. While current literature provides psychological explanations for dance participation little is known about the lived experiences of adults who dance recreationally. The objective of this dissertation is to understand dance participation in adulthood and the experience of deciding to start or continue dancing. The first part of this dissertation will document the types of dance activities available in Vancouver, Canada to describe the involvement opportunities for adults in recreational dance contexts. This will be achieved through an environmental scan guided by the Canadian Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity framework. Data will consist of publicly available information about dance programming, supplemented by interviews with dance programmers. Using hermeneutic phenomenology, the second part of this dissertation will explore adults’ decisions to start and continue dancing recreationally. This portion of the dissertation will include interviews with 30 adults who have varying trajectories in dance participation. These interviews will focus on the experience of what it means to decide to start or continue dancing recreationally as an adult. The findings of this dissertation will contribute to theory of lifelong participation for both dance and the wider field of sport and physical activity and open the space for a deeper understanding of what it means to dance as an adult. This research will provide dance educators, dance studios, community dance programs, and researchers with insight into the experience of adults who dance.