Dance your Culture
Start date: Aug 1, 2016,
End date: Oct 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Intercultural understanding is important when we talk about Europe. By learning old traditions and cultures we become more aware of our own identity and the one we share with other (European) countries. This youth exchange explores the traditional dances of five European countries and gives the opportunity to young people with no or little dance experience to get to know more about dances and eventually about Europe. We focus on folklore dances since we come from countries that still have living dance traditions, and we believe we have a lot to share with, and receive from, all partner countries. Dancing in this case is used as the main form of communication, and contributes to effective interaction and eliminating language barriers. This project focuses also on developing digital competences with the creation of a short documentary film reflecting on how the young people experience culture and the folklore dances. In particular workshops will be dedicated in amateur video, image and sound editing using open source software. This project aims also to involve youth with fewer opportunities mainly with social, economical and geographical obstacles. The project involves 30 young participants from Cyprus, Bulgaria Italy, Hungary and Norway and is primarily oriented to people interested in traditional arts habits and intercultural understanding. The participants will share knowledge of folklore dances of their home countries via non-formal education; we will not learn it, we will dance it! Workshops from experts will aim to develop digital competences by learning the basics for video editing. Project activities will further focus on enhancing creativity of participants and team building through a variety of games, role-plays, group discussions, and everyday reflective sessions. To encourage intercultural dialogue and bonding we will organize cultural evenings and spend time together learning the basics from each other's music, dance, and language. We will further organize a dance festival to disseminate results to the local community. Making use of the social media, we will maintain a platform of shared practices for facilitating the distribution of information in our home countries and encourage future collaborations. Through this exchange, young people get to know better their own culture via teaching to others their own folklore dances but also appreciate the diversity of European cultures by learning from others. Through this exchange we contribute to document and preserve these traditions at local and european level. We further promote intercultural understanding and especially european bonding for people with fewer opportunities and communities in rural areas.