Creative Europe - Dance as ICH (English)
2022-2025
CEMPER vzw is one of nine partners from six different countries collaborating on the Creative Europe project Dance as intangible heritage: new models for facilitating participatory dance events. Throughout the project, we reflect on participatory dance practices, their communities and how the cultural heritage sector can contribute to safeguarding these practices. The project aims to provide new or innovative models for the performance of participatory dance within museums so that museums can function as new dance spaces.
Dance as intangible heritage (ICH) requires a new interpretation of the exhibition concept as an event of practice that challenges the traditional roles of researchers, curators, administrators and others. Intangible heritage starts from the heritage communities and thus the practitioners of dance themselves, so these new models must be created through bottom-up processes of co-creation.
This innovative way of exhibiting is crucial to permanently anchor new dance spaces and thus provide a future perspective for cultural dance heritage in Europe. A series of workshops in the different partner countries will lead to a toolbox and a research publication that will reveal our recommendations on new models for facilitating participatory events of practice exhibition.
Workshop in Belgium
Belgium is the first partner country to organize several workshops. From January 30 to February 1, 2023, CEMPER will work on the interpretation of dance as intangible heritage and its safeguarding. We will discuss the needs of the heritage communities themselves and hope to provide inspiring examples of working with dance communities and organizations that support and enable dance in Flanders or Belgium. Throughout the workshops various speakers will be featured, including many dance communities. In addition, several partner organizations will present their projects on safeguarding intangible heritage in a museum context.
Workshops abroad
The project does not stop after the workshop series in Belgium. Several partners in the project are organising workshops in turn, where we will gain insight into their operations, learn about local dance practices and reflect further on substantive questions. We will visit the Skanzen open-air museum in Hungary, the ASTRA open-air museum in Romania and the University of Athens. Read reports from these conferences abroad below (in Dutch only).
Dance as ICH in Griekenland – From dance ethnography to dance class in the 21st century
Dance as ICH in Roemenië – Cultural mediation of dance activities
Dance as ICH - The Hungarian Dance House Model
Research on balfolk, traditional folk and world dance
As part of the ‘Dance as ICH’ project, CEMPER conducted research on balfolk, traditional folk and world dance. A survey, individual interviews and a roundtable discussion gave us insight into these dances in Flanders and highlighted what the respondents think is going well and what could be improved to safeguard the dances in Flanders. Based on this, we want to determine concrete safeguarding actions to pass on the heritage to future generations.
A report on this study is available in Dutch. An article in English on this subject will be published soon.
Partners
- Norwegian centre for traditional music and dance;
- The Museums of Southern Trøndelag (MiST);
- CEMPER, Centre for Music and Performin Arts Heritage in Flanders;
- The Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU);
- The Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM);
- ASTRA National Museum Complex;
- The Hellenic Folklore Research Centre (HFRC) — Academy of Athens;
- The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA);
- The Hungarian Open Air Museum (Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum).
Go to the website of the project
More info can be found on the European site of the project Dancingaslivingheritage.eu.
Project officer
This project is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.