Teaching bodies: movement-based performing arts as an approach to embodied education in secondary teacher training

With the underlying goal of promoting resilient imaginaries to present crisis in school cultures the study aims at analysing what kinds of pedagogical strategies are enhanced in the context of a secondary school teacher training dedicated to Movement-based Performing Arts (MbPA) that focus on bodily imagination, as well as the experiences described by participants. The study is conducted through an Artistic Action Research involving seven teachers of different subjects in Spain, through a qualitative analysis adopting the lens of interpretive inquiry and the operative framework of the aspects of embodiment elaborated by Hegna and Ørbæk. The results point at the key value of the MbPA that focus on bodily imagination as an approach to embodied teaching and learning, when it comes to engaging with the embodiment experiences by foregrounding the bodily and sensory experiences of embodiment, filling the gap between research and classroom practice, advancing towards the decolonisation of Embodied Education, and building up imaginative school cultures that are resilient to present challenges.