SOURCE: Redfern, Betty. Concepts in Modern Educational Dance, Dance Books Ltd., London, 1982. p. 20-21. ISBN: 0-903102-67-6.

"To be "imaginative"in the aesthetic realm, therefore, demands knowledge and understanding of the standards and techniques peculiar to the art form in question. For a teacher simply to tell children to use their imagination and expect something of value to flow forth without doing anything to help them to structure their ideas, and to ensure that they have something worth expressing in the first place, is indefensible in education. Indeed it is probably erroneous to think in terms of there being determinate thoughts and feelings which first exist and then "get expressed". Rather, they come into existence, and become known, in the very formulating of the symbols involved (cf.Wollheim, 1971). Expressed differently they would be different."

"As educators, we are not engaged in a therapeutic task, but are committed to initiating children and students into "the world of human achievement" (Oakeshott, 1967) which is constituted by a variety of public modes of experience (see also Hirst & Peters, 1970). As far as dance is concerned, this means that they engage in an aesthetic form of understanding, that they learn both to "speak" and to "listen" to this "voice" which contributes to the "conversation" of mankind (cf. Oakeshott, 1962). A confused "babbling" will not do."

"To what extent every individual should compose his won dances, perform thos of others, and be a spectator is, of course, a further question which depends on a great variety of considerations, ..."

"What is clear, however, is that we cannot just say that the aim of such an enterprise is to "develop the imagination". This,... has no meaning until it is spelled out in terms of a particular kind of activity. Although,... there may be, and often is, an interlocking and overlapping of imaging, various kinds of supposing, and using "creative imagination," imaginative behaviour in one sense is no guarantee of an imaginative performance in another. Nor is imaginative achievement of the creative kind to be expected to lead automatically to similarly-styled achievements in a different area. The imaginative physicist may or may not be also an imaginative actor or writer; but if he is, it will be because he has studied and practised the specific disciplines of that activity, and not because in some mysterious way his abilities in the scientific sphere in respect of "imaginative thinking" are immediately transferable to another realm.

"The most that can be said in this connection is that such an individual might be likely to adopt a similar sort of approach to other undertakings upon which he embarks. His manner of tackling them might have a generally "imaginative" flavour in the sense of a readiness "to be susceptible to seeing various aspects" and to stop himself "from being captured by one aspect... "But in order for the outcome to be of a high quality he must necessarily apply himself to the principles and techniques of the activity in question.

As far as dance education is concerned, the implications are obvious. As McKellar (1957) has emphasised:

Selection, reasoning, craftsmanship and hard thinking all play an essential part in artistic thought products. So also does learning. Before an artist can produce an acceptable work of art he must learn a great deal from others.