Curated based on topics and research discussed during the 2023 Symposium The Role of Popular Dance in Higher Education in Australasia and the Asia Pacific Region, this Chat seeks to “think and move through the role that popular, social, and vernacular dance plays (or does not play or only marginally plays or should ideally play) in higher education institutions in the Australasian as well as the broader Asia Pacific region, and to further reflect (on) the reality of how our dance communities interact as well as how our dance scholars interact in between and across these areas.”

Extending engagement with the symposium questions: 

• What is the role of popular, social, and vernacular dance in dance departments? How much are they included? In what way do they show up in the curriculum?
• What forms of knowledges do popular/social/vernacular dance scholars/practitioners bring to the institution?
• What are the benefits of including popular, social, and vernacular dance more firmly into the curriculum, both inside and outside of dance departments?
• What conditions need to be created to more firmly situate popular, social, and vernacular dance knowledges into the curriculum and into departments, dance or otherwise?
• What are the barriers to make popular, social, and vernacular dance knowledges more firmly part of the curriculum?
• How do popular/social/vernacular dance scholars/practitioners navigate institutions, misconceptions about their practices, and precarity?
• What are the interactions and collaborations that you have experienced or witnessed between dancers/dance groups/dance researchers/dance institutions in Australasia and the broader Asia Pacific region?

This Chat offers short-form articles by Dr. Jeanette Mollenhauer (Hon Fellow at University of Melbourne), Jacqueline Graham (Director of Australian Gender Equity Council and dancer/musician), and Kate-Elissah Tallamy (Dancer and dance studio owner), and a lively video conversation between editors Dr. Elena Benthaus of University of Melbourne and Serenity Wise of University of Auckland. Specifically, contributions interrogate hegemony and inequity within dance education, reconceptualizing diversity within dance higher education, and how community-based dance schools outside of higher education can impact dance teacher education. All topics discussed are specific to the experience of higher education in Australasia.