Engaging dialogue: Co-Creating communities of collaborative inquiry

This dialogical article reflects stories of encounter. The unexpected collision of our worlds and thoughts, and the familiarities and tensions we came to recognize in each other's experiences when facilitating collaborative research in two communities of dance teachers, has given birth to this shared line of inquiry. We have come to acknowledge that our collaborative endeavor to better understand our experiences facilitating dance professionals in exploring their cultures of dance teaching and pedagogical practices has offered reassurance, inspiration, even discomfort, as it has led us to newfound awareness of our ways of doing research and facilitating inquiry. Our two-year dialogical journey has led us to consider the chaotic and continually shifting, transformative process of constructing oneself as a researcher in the midst of converging locations, spaces, time and others. In this article, we consider how perspectives gained from our experiences facilitating dance teachers in inquiry, and our conversations about theses encounters, might align with, challenge or present new ways of looking at collaborative inquiry as a mode of research, learning, discovery and change.