Visual learning in the 21st Century: Cape Breton step dance on the small screen and as a learning tool in the dance class

Clips of Cape Breton step dancing of old is difficult. As a dance genre it was passed on informally at home or at house ceilidhs for generations since the arrival of Europeans to Cape Breton in the late 17th Century. Transmission was visual, aural and kinaesthetic. “You just picked it up” or if you were lucky you could access a dancing master who would teach you, but generally you learnt initially from a family member and by watching others dance. By the 1970s dance classes were becoming popular and the learning process changed to a more typically teacher and pupil relation. However, transmission remained based on visual and rhythm learning one to one in person. Fast-forward to 21st Century and we have access to a few teaching videos and a few documentaries on the dance genre produced locally. But more importantly we have access to film clips old and new on the Internet, predominantly on YouTube. This article will look at the possible impact on the Cape Breton step dance tradition when its exponents become accessible globally as I have experienced it. When dancers and others interested worldwide, with access to a computer or DVD recorder, can pick up steps and potentially learn aspects of a dance genre on the remote. How will these dancers on the remote render the style of the dance genre? If the experience of human interaction with a dancer from the tradition does not occur, I ask what aspects of the dance style are potentially lost, misunderstood, or changed? On a more positive side should we not also see modern technology as an archive, a means of capturing ephemeral moments in time for posterity? This article concludes by exploring some of my current explorations in using online video as a teaching tool. I explore its usage to inform my students of some of the aspects the Cape Breton cultural expression that could otherwise be lost if their observations are not informed of what to look for.