A Vygotsky-an Approach to the Tendu

In this article, I apply educational psychologist Vygotsky’s framework for the development of mental operations to a reflective inquiry on the development of the ballet step tendu. After a brief introduction to Vygotsky and the broader area of Socio-Cultural Learning Theory, I reflect on my years as a modern/post-modern dancer and dance teacher to draw parallels between what Vygotsky calls the stages of pre-intellectual, naïve, pseudo, and true-concepts and my own experience of the stages of the development of tendu. In so doing, I aim to bring attention to the developmental connections between acting and attending in the process of learning dance, thereby highlighting the deep cognitive work that is often implicit in a dance education.