‘Twist and Shout’: Bodies in the Physical School

Abstract

The dance is always bodies in movement, and in the school many forms of dance can be represented, and legitimate and illegitimate steps (from the most constrained to the most extravagant movement) can be found. For any observer entering a school in a break between lessons a major impression is of movement and sound, and of a large number of young bodies interacting in a relatively confined space. The sense of embodiment, of the physicality of what happens in schools, is strong. Students walk, run, play, mill around, talk, shout, laugh.¹ They rush into play areas to play energetically at break, or in sports lessons, and return hot and flushed to their lessons. Movement and sound surrounds the observer. This tumult contrasts with the stillness and quiet which descends once lessons have started; sounds are muted, confined to the individual classrooms, and controlled within these (Gordon and Lahelma, 1996). Distant shouts may be heard from the outside sports areas, but the corridors are hushed and calm.