The Inclusive Dance Community
Last April of 2017 the closing event took place of an Erasmus+ Project Inclusive Dance. The Transferable skills of the dance artist. And with this event people from within the international dance field from different departments were brought together to launch a new community. A community facilitated on the notion that learning and performing in embodied dance practice gives dance artists a specific skill set that can be valuable and practical in a wider context than dance alone. The Inclusive Dance Community is brought to life to explore the boundaries of dance, share visions on contemporary dance careers by example and connect to peers with a likeminded perspective on the value of artistic dance practice.
The Inclusive Dance Community has come out of the project and is growing into a sharing and learning international community around inclusive visions on dance that emerge through the transferable skills of the dance artist. The community shares around these topics to learn and offer new perspectives and practices on what dance can mean for society. Online and offline. The website is a facilitated space to come together or to find ways to get in touch in the real world to start interesting collaborations.
Be welcome and join the community!
The community is for dance performers, choreographers, teachers, movers and anyone that would like to challenge their boundaries of their own movement practice. We are convinced that dance can learn from other sectors and other sectors in society can learn from artistic movement & dance practice. That is why we aim for a hybrid community of dance students, teachers and professionals to connect with other work fields, expertise and disciplines inside and outside the artistic domain. Acknowledging the different components of the work setting makes it possible to reconsider the position of the dance and/or dance artist in society. Recent trends have seen dance as an active role in inclusive settings, leading projects that can change lives, business practice or influence society.
Below a short film with two first year dance students of Fontys Dance Academy who participated on the Inclusive Dance Event. This is what they have to say. What do you have to say? Share it on the platform! Be welcome and join our community!
About the event
An offline event to launch the online and offline inclusive dance community: We want to share, explore and connect around the outcomes of the 3 year Erasmus+ project, Inclusive: The Transferable skills of the dance artist. We have worked from an inclusive vision on and approach to dance. With an inclusive vision and researching ways of working with the transferable skills of the dance artist, we wish to contribute to the development and position of dance and the dance artist in society. Dance only for the theatre stage, or art for art sake is an outdated reality. Dance art offers much more.
The Inclusive Dance Event was designed to the potentiality of dance with, for and in a variety of sectors, contexts and groups with mixed abilities and vice versa. We share insights and experiences on renewed educational practices and collaborations. This event marks the closing of the project and is the gateway to build a community that connects on- and offline around these valuable topics. After this day we hope your perspectives on dance have broadened, that you have made new connections and start sharing from your practice in your own environments and online. In this way the growing body of knowledge and practices for and by the inclusive dance community can be sustainable.
Bigger context of the research project
The project has been developed by an international consortium formed by Fontys Dance Academy in Tilburg (NL), Royal Conservatoire Antwerp – Artesis Plantijn University College (BE) and Duncan Centre Conservatory in Prague (CZ), in co-operation with their respective partners DEMOS Antwerp, Parkinson Help vs. Prague and Tilburg Dansstad/ DansBrabant. The project aims to redefi ne dance education, contribute to career development and the positioning of dance in society from an inclusive approach. How dancers can diversify and pro-actively create their own job opportunities, not only as performers but to expand the benefi ts of dance in society. Each partner adopted a theme: Re-thinking Bodies (Antwerp), Re-designing Spaces (Tilburg) and Somatics (Prague) and created a practice based research trajectory. The three intensive study programs were organized with the learning community of teachers, students and partners. We have experimented with digital means like live streaming and forms of online learning. The created platform offers the fi rst 120 hours curated content to explore and much more.
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