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The act of educating in and through dance is an ephemeral thing. In many cases, it is individually interpreted, vanishes even as it is provided, and seems to resist all efforts to quantify or measure its efficacy. It is not preserved in scores or within frames and its artifacts do not consume too much space in the stacks of the college library. Books and media help preserve ideas, pedagogies, histories, and concerts, but still, dance is most commonly preserved and held on to through, between and among bodies, and bodies come and go, they live and then they die. Dance is passed down from generation to generation by these determined yet transitory bodies, passed down through their practices, practices that have been shaped by the values these bodies have determined are important to them. And the circle starts again because values are the province of people and survive to shape a next generation only as people care to have them around. Tastes change; we don’t dance like we used to, but we still dance. Because dance is not easily documented, preserved, measured, or archived its continuing presence in culture and in education is the responsibility of its practitioners who inherit what they practice, believe in, preserve and treasure in movement, add some of their own presence and spirit to the mix and pass this new blend—this legacy—on to the next generation. The presence of legacy in dance is an elusive but interesting topic—as dance educators, what is left us? What do we pass on? What do we do—because that has always been done? What is legacy about in dance education?
Revealing what is handed down in dance from ancestor to descendant presents significant challenges to the scholar interested in its deep discussion. The evidences of legacy may be clear, present and established in practice, or they may appear and then disappear in the context of a single dance class. The essences of legacy may be in processes of slowly fading away, in static hold, or in quickly becoming. Legacy may be local in its influence, or may permeate the sensibilities of the entire field. For instance, legacy in dance education may be seen in practices that are widely accepted—the basic organization of a ballet technique class is fairly universal in its presentation and sequence—but the legacy of what values are brought forward in that ballet class may be of a very personal nature as the instructor teaches her class in a manner and regard that closely reflects the values and practices of a singularly influential mentor.