This study sits within a field that is constantly expanding: dance pedagogy, and what pedagogical leadership within it can look like. One of the questions that has followed me throughout the Bachelor's programme in dance pedagogy is: how can I articulate my pedagogical leadership as it is becoming within my practice? This independent study is my attempt to explore that.

Through a practice-based a/r/tographic approach, I have been tracing my own pedagogical leadership as it emerges within my ongoing practice, the Monster practice: an artistic and pedagogical practice in which participants are invited to explore different ways of being in the body, in themselves, and in the world, through embodying a fictional creature.

The study asks: how can I articulate my pedagogical leadership that is becoming within the Monster practice?

To explore this question, I carried out a process over six sessions within the Monster practice together with two participants, both students of the bachelor programme in dance pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts, in a contemporary dance context. The empirical material, written and visual documentation from the process, was analyzed through self-interviews and through two theoretical lenses: curatorship, as developed by Moraes and Bagheri Nesami, understood through the notion of cura – from the Medieval Latin meaning care, healing, and repairing – as a relational practice of caring for and with others, and Maxine Greene's concept of pedagogical openings.

My pedagogical leadership was articulated through two emerging figures: The Chef and The Host. The Chef constructs conditions before sessions, curating what can happen. The Host holds the space during sessions, caring for what unfolds within them. Together, these figures form a pedagogical leadership built on curating with pedagogical openings.