A Study of the Meaning of Associative Words Related to Dance Expression in Contemporary Dance Major Students

The purpose of this study is to identify the associative words and their meanings related to dance expressiveness as perceived by university students majoring in contemporary dance. To achieve this, 40 students from the Department of Dance at B University in Busan were selected. The research subjects were asked, "What does dance expressiveness mean to you?" via text message, and their responses were collected through individual messages. The collected data were categorized through content analysis to extract key terms, and the meanings of each key term were interpreted. As a result, the associative words for dance expressiveness identified by contemporary dance majors were emotion, freedom, immersion, movement ability, will, expression method, intention, and thought, in that order. These findings are expected to contribute to the development of more effective educational methodologies and improvement of educational programs by assessing the understanding and recognizing the diversity of perceptions of dance expressiveness among contemporary dance majors.