Questioning values in the delivery of dance practices at the University of East London

The BA (Hons) Dance: Urban Practice course at the University of East London was established in 2007, to deliberately challenge the canon of dance practices that were being offered within UK Dance Higher Education. For the last 15 years, we have been committed to developing a curriculum which aims to raise the value of a broad range of dance cultures in theory and practice. This chapter considers the ongoing challenges and contradictions that we face in the development and delivery of the course. Drawing from several scholars, student perspectives and lecturer experiences, we examine how questions and issues of value are reflected and embedded in our delivery and curriculum content, and the impact this has on students. We address this by focusing on four particular areas: contradictory principles and points of intersection; inadequate terminologies; embodied histories and knowledge and new micro-hierarchies.