The effect of dance-based activities on sustainable careers

This chapter explores the impact of arts-based pedagogical approaches, particularly dance, on sustainable career development through an autoethnographic methodology on my personal experiences and a robust theoretical framework. A mixed methodology, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative empirical data, along with a sustainable career model I developed using a Complex Adaptive Systems perspective, forms the basis of this discussion. The chapter highlights how artistic activities such as dance, which serve as sub-agents of social support in the individual dimension of the model, interact with other agents and dimensions (individual, organizational, and environmental) to promote career sustainability. Told from a first-person perspective, the chapter underscores the transformative power of the arts in fostering work-life balance and professional identity, integrating both theoretical insights and practical examples to present innovative, transdisciplinary approaches to postering sustainable careers. It also demonstrates how arts-based activities, such as dance, interact with organizational and wider environmental factors to influence career sustainability.