Thom Hecht Books

Focusing on the emotional components of ballet training, this book presents a research-based framework for enhancing social and emotional learning among ballet teachers and students. It addresses the pressures faced by dancers and educators in elite settings, emphasizing the need for a supportive pedagogical approach. By utilizing an inductive-deductive research methodology, the text explores how integrating social and emotional learning can elevate vocational dance training and cultivate artistic, social, and technical skills in a competitive environment.

This book presents the first in-depth archival exploration of a lost history of dance as an extracurricular activity at Radcliffe College, the women's liberal arts college of Harvard University, during the first half of twentieth century. Using archival story-ing, an innovative methodology that brings the researcher's lived experience at the Radcliffe College Archives into the historical discourse, three archive stories were created. These vivid narratives thrive in the researcher's personal encounters with the surroundings of the archive and the interpretation and reading of what is to be found giving profound insights into what it means to walk in the footsteps of Radcliffe dance history.