{"id":14,"date":"2026-04-13T09:22:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.wrkshp.fi\/as-colliander\/?p=14"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:39:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:39:52","slug":"6-1-dancing-drawing-assemblages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/actascenica.teak.fi\/colliander-tuire\/6-1-dancing-drawing-assemblages\/","title":{"rendered":"6.1 Dancing\u2013Drawing Assemblages"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this chapter, I discuss how I employed drawing as part of my dance pedagogical approach, tracing its development from a communicative aid to a participatory method of composing choreography, and further into an exploratory mode of reciprocal dancing and drawing. In this process, drawing extended beyond its well-known use as a multimodal and reflective means of accessing children’s experiences and meaning-making in dance (e.g., Bond and Deans 1997<\/a>; Bond and Stinson 2000<\/a>; Deans and Wright 2018<\/a>; Svendler Nielsen 2009<\/a>) to become a multifaceted approach that bridges research and educational practice. I conceptualise these diverse uses collectively as dancing–drawing assemblages, highlighting their potential to broaden modes of aesthetic thinking and artistic expression, thereby enhancing the inclusivity of dance education. This approach also fosters an intra-active view of pedagogical documentation with both artistic and pedagogical significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.1.1 Drawing as Communicating<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My research revealed that translating verbal and embodied expressions into visual formats not only enriched communication but also supported artistic expression. In an ECEC environment characterised by linguistic challenges, this proved to be especially valuable and supportive for collective meaning-making. For example, even a single word as a theme for improvisation, like ‘turtle,’ combined with a related visual image, could ensure a shared understanding of the exploration, as narrated in the sections ‘Warming Up’ with Methodology<\/a> and ‘Exploring’ during Fieldwork<\/a>. This way, dance improvisation developed into a rich interplay of embodied ideas and narratives about turtles—such as their movements, actions, and relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building on the link between dancing–drawing assemblages and the multiliteracy framework in ECEC, drawing-based dance education can be anchored in the core curriculum’s understanding of multiliteracies, which embraces texts in written, spoken, visual, audiovisual, and digital form (EDUFI 2017<\/a>). This understanding also aligns with intra-active views of young children’s literacy as inherently multimodal, as evident in the everyday interplay of speech, movement, and visual representations (Hackett and Rautio 2019<\/a>). From this perspective, meaning-making is not limited to human-centred processes but emerges through entanglements with the more- and other-than-human world (Hackett and Somerville 2017<\/a>). This view further resonates with MacLure’s (2023) theorisation of language as multisensory communication, which entails cognitive but also haptic, affective, and embodied dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this framework, dance and drawing operate as intertwined practices that broaden children’s capacities to communicate with, respond to, and reimagine their experiences and surroundings. The complexity of dancing–drawing assemblages cannot be fully captured through spoken, drawn, or bodily language alone. Rather, it is enacted through the interweaving of these modalities into an assemblage that exceeds the sum of its individual elements. In this sense, employing drawing as an additional mode of communication and an extended layer of artistic expression in dance education holds significant potential for fostering children’s linguistic and cultural diversity by expanding their creative agency. As a methodological assemblage, these practices support fluid alternation between modalities and enable children to translate dance experiences into new visual forms of knowledge, and vice versa. In doing so, they activate diverse modes of expression, mobilise a broad range of skills, and nurture creativity through multimodal pathways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My use of improvisation-based, instant drawing rather than ready-made picture cards parallels my use of improvisation-based dance instead of set choreographies and technical exercises. The improvisational approach to drawing further supports a playful approach, as the drawings are not planned or rehearsed in advance. In this context, the primary objective is to communicate through drawing, thereby shifting the focus from producing high-quality representations to conveying the underlying idea effectively. Actively employing my average-level drawing skills shows the children that they do not need to strive for perfection, but that it is acceptable to work at one’s own level of capability. Imperfections or outright failures in drawing have prompted children to develop more creative interpretations and more unexpected qualities of movement than the original idea might have produced. Accepting performances that diverge from plans, whether in drawing or in dancing, is an important value that these dancing–drawing assemblages can convey in contemporary educational contexts including both ECEC and other dance education settings. In doing so, they open up space for emergence and foster an appreciation of the improvisational qualities inherent in educational practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.1.2 Creating Choreography through Drawing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the central practical outcomes of this study is the development of the Storyboard Method, whereby drawing serves as a creative form of writing and supports a child-driven approach to generating choreography (Colliander 2024a<\/a>). This approach resonates with the etymology of the term choreography, which originates from the Greek words choreia<\/em>, meaning the synthesis of dance and rhythm, and graph<\/em>, meaning the act of writing. Thus, the term choreography denotes the ‘art of writing of dances’, encompassing the composition and notation of movement sequences. (Foster 2011<\/a>, 16–17) By reactivating this original sense of choreography as an entanglement of movement and drawing, the Storyboard Method acknowledges young children as both writers and composers of dance, and can extend further into their active roles in performing and teaching dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Storyboard Method offers a particularly valuable approach in contemporary linguistically and culturally diverse ECEC settings, providing embodied and visual modes of communication that complement or can serve as alternatives to spoken language. It responds to the need for inclusive and culturally responsive approaches by accommodating varied ages and linguistic abilities and by providing an accessible framework for collaborative dance-making. This method aligns with the ideas of Pastorek Gripson, Lindqvist, and Østern (2022<\/a>), who identify inclusion and participation as core values in dance pedagogy and related research. It further connects with the thinking of Siljamäki and Anttila (2020<\/a>), who emphasise the importance of adaptable, culturally responsive approaches in increasingly diverse childhood communities. In my pedagogical practices, the material for choreographies usually arises from movement exploration in dance improvisation, but this approach does not exclude the use of movements, for example, that originate from a specific dance genre or cultural context. This flexibility makes the method response-able in multiple ways, as it can encompass a broad range of approaches to movement and choreographic work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participatory dimensions of the Storyboard Method stem from its child-driven, playful approach to co-creating choreography. Drawing, conceived as a creative form of writing in an assemblage with dance, can enable reciprocal, playful collaboration among children and between children and adults. In this way, dancing and drawing are not viewed primarily as artistic skills, but as expressive media and language forms in their own right. Such an approach can foster a more equitable distribution of artistic agency between children and adults and has the potential to promote more democratic artistic processes by increasing opportunities for equal participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this framework, children are positioned as active, agentic participants in their own creative processes, providing a framework in which adult authority is decentred or even rendered unnecessary. The method thereby enables the de\/re\/construction of educational hierarchies, as teachers can become learners and children can take on the role of teachers. I encountered this dynamic already in the very first Storyboard choreographies that the children created and subsequently taught to their peers and to me. This process can also be understood as a subtle form of resistance to adult- and policy-driven governance in early childhood education, resonating with what Malone, Tesar, and Arndt (2020<\/a>) and Tesar (2014<\/a>; 2017) describe as the ‘childhood underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The processes of creating and interpreting the Storyboard choreography provide a practical framework in which the visual dimension supports the organisation of the artistic working process. The creative work is structured by sequentially filling the drawn grid, followed by interpreting the choreography by dancing, utilising the drawn storyboard as a visual aid to memorise the movements. This way, the Storyboard Method creates a pedagogical space that balances structure and openness, which I conceptualise using Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) notions of striated and smooth space. This framework produces a striated space in the format of a structured, sequential grid that supports choreographic development through clear working routines and compositional order. Yet, alongside these striations, the method also invites teachers and children into a fluid, participatory environment, where their artistic agency can unfold through diverse modes and qualities of expression. This openness parallels the characteristics of smooth space, as described by Deleuze and Guattari (1987<\/a>), as each storyboard grid, while structured, can be interpreted through multiple pathways. Such fluidity can enable participants to move beyond habitual patterns of thought or movement, fostering inventiveness and diverse interpretations within a supportive structure. This structuring can be further reinforced by a choice of music with a clear, guiding structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the Storyboard Method does not require prior dance expertise, as choreographic material can emerge from improvisation, drawing on everyday gestures and actions that are collectively shaped into movement sequences. This approach aligns with the ideas of Pastorek Gripson, Lindqvist, and Østern (2022<\/a>), who highlight that learning choreographic tools would be particularly valuable for preschool teachers, as it could encourage and enable greater integration of dance into ECEC practices. This view has resonated in my experiences of introducing this method to educators in various contexts, ranging from ECEC to dance education and primary schools. Furthermore, the Storyboard Method facilitates the incorporation of pedagogical documentation as an integral dimension of the activity, with the drawn storyboard functioning as a material documentation of the choreography and the pedagogical work. This approach can support educators’ documentation requirements by embedding at least part of this work within the activity, thereby minimising the need for separate post-activity documentation time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.1.3 Exploratory Dancing–Drawing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Exploring the concept of lines of flight (Deleuze and Guattari 1987<\/a>) within the context of the pre-examined artistic component Käännöksiä – Transpositions<\/em>, shifted my focus from viewing drawing as a purely representational activity to perceiving it as deeply entangled with dancing. This perspective emphasises the exploratory quality of drawing as leaving a trace of movement or the abstract traces serving as a source for further improvisation. This interest led me to consider drawn lines and dancing bodies as integral components of a more\/other-than-human dancing–drawing assemblage, informed by posthuman and intra-active theoretical perspectives. Rather than treating dancing and drawing as separate practices, I view them as interconnected and emergent. This way, dance improvisation becomes a performative act within a body–pen–paper assemblage, entangled with other bodies, space, and time, communicating across multiple modalities at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exploratory mode of dancing and drawing entails not knowing or controlling where they might lead. This view aligns with Tervahartiala’s (2022) articulation of exploratory drawing as a form of meaning-making that does not occur as a bilateral interaction between the artist and the drawing but as an investigation with the drawing as a non-human other and a companion. This way, dancing and drawing move beyond mere imitation or representation of external objects, opening a space to engage with embodied ideas and abstract visualisations that emerge in the moment. At the same time, drawing and dancing are released from a habitual, skill-oriented mode of evaluation and become reimagined as dynamic, processual activities that invite exploration rather than representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My conceptualisation of dancing–drawing assemblages as a pedagogical approach aligns with and expands upon the Segni mossi project (Segni mossi n.d.<\/a>), which investigates ‘the interaction between dance and the graphic sign with children and adults’. This practice introduces a significant shift in perspectives by intertwining movement and drawn lines within learning events. What makes this approach particularly generative in my theorisation of improvisation-based intra-active dance pedagogy is its emphasis on the inclusive nature and emergent quality of dancing and drawing, without imposing skill-based expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lines drawn during dancing, as traces of movement, often inspire rich verbal and embodied interpretations, sparking further discussion. It is remarkable how a single line, or ‘syherö’, can evoke vivid interpretations at both verbal and embodied levels. This way, translations between verbal, embodied, and visual forms reveal a capacity of multimodal approaches to dissolve boundaries among language, the body, and the visual expression. This dynamic is supported by research, proposing multimodal approaches within education as powerful pedagogical tools for connecting different forms of expression, and thus offering multiple avenues for engagement (Svendler Nielsen 2009<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dancing–drawing assemblages provide an alternative means of engaging with and reflecting on embodied experiences, which simultaneously supports documentation. In line with intra-active pedagogy (Lenz Taguchi 2010<\/a>) and Anttila, Tuovinen, and Jaakonaho (2024<\/a>), I understand pedagogical documentation within artistic research not as a fixed representation of events, but as an open-ended, generative process that creates new realities. Drawing, when used reflectively, can support the documentation of dancing. There, it functions as what Haley (2018<\/a>) describes as ‘constructions of the moving body’. These are not linear records of temporal progression, but conceptual and material traces of movement. These drawings do not depict the body as an object in space but instead assemble elements of the event, serving as dynamic models with the potential for future animation and reinterpretation (Haley 2018<\/a>). In this way, the material traces of dancing–drawing can function as pedagogical documentation, shifting their role to exposing without explaining and becoming valuable without being evaluable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude, I propose incorporating dancing–drawing assemblages as both a practical and conceptual framework in dance education, supporting an ongoing and dynamic process of multimodal meaning-making. Such an approach enhances children’s opportunities to participate in and engage with dancing. The body–pen–paper assemblage can function as an enabling constraint, shifting the focus away from inventing what to draw or how to dance and toward exploring movement of the assemblage and inscribing traces of the process itself. The generative potential of this framework is evident in the research story introduced at the beginning of this commentary, where drawing became an entry point into movement, illustrating how children can draw themselves into dancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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