All in Movement Erasmus Project

Project Title

All in Movement

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Health and wellbeing; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The All in Movement (AiM) project’s purpose was to support teachers and organisations to improve and promote the power of social inclusion in movement meditation education. Dance and music are a universal language which can be highly effective at bringing people of different backgrounds together and benefiting integration – particularly in big city environments. We found however that this is a complex and challenging area that requires exchanges of training, knowledge, skills and communication and creativity that AiM provided.

All partners were from European capital cities: London, Berlin, Budapest and Rome. This meant that the project spans across the EU (East-West, North-South) and allowed teachers in four of the top ten largest cities in the EU. We worked with the main schools of movement meditation of Movement Medicine and 5Rhythms and this project helped teachers, organisers and participants to widen the diversity of learners, increase up-take and expand opportunities to include disadvantaged learners across the EU.

The project’s target groups were:
-5Rhythms and MM teachers who will have an opportunity to come together to share practices and improve social inclusion in their teaching
-Learners from a diverse range of backgrounds who will be part of the training and piloting events and will get to experience these practices for the first time or as part of new teaching and outreach methods
-The wider movement meditation, well being sector / movement.

The objectives of the partnership were to:
-develop, pilot and integrate new and effective approaches of inclusion, diversity, equality, gender-balance and non-discrimination in each organisation
-improve access, participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners, reducing disparities in learning outcomes.
-share practices and promote the power of social inclusion and integration in movement meditation and conscious dance practice.
-strengthen the cooperation between organisations with a view to establishing exchanges of practices
-develop new ways of reaching others and improving up-take in movement meditation education
-increase partner’s capacity to operate at a transnational level, share and confront ideas and methods
-explore the feasibility and laying the foundations of a specific curriculum on social inclusion in movement practice.

We believe we achieved every single one of these objectives and more (although it came with challenges and costs to do it!).

There were many results and impacts of the project. Some of the key ones were:
-Teachers and organisers learnt new practices and skills for working in inclusive ways and had a personal response. For example, how a chair can transform access to the dancefloor, the importance of community days. “Because of this Erasmus Project I feel back in my own power and trust. I can give with my work what people need again.”
– 5Rhythms and Movement Meditation community – locally, regionally, European and internationally.
Over 100 participants have attended the pubic events we ran as part of AiM, or example Dancing on the Bridges in London and the wave in Budapest. The project has initiated discussions (online and in person) about social inclusion in our community and issues of class, gender, ethnicity, affordability, safety/risk and many other aspects of what it is to create a welcoming dancefloor.
– We can definitely say that our project and partnership worked extremely hard in a personal way to work on social inclusion within our group. We talked about, wrote it, drew it, danced it, moved it, did ceremonies around it and thought about it in four different cities and countries. We cried, laughed, got angry, got sad, disagreed, agreed and felt numb. We did not achieve a perfect balance of social inclusion but we did learn a lot. And what we learnt has gone into the pamphlet, video and our teaching, organisation of classes and workshops and our own practice.

We created two videos of this project:
– One about our LTT event in Budapest: https://vimeo.com/260775858
– One of the Rhythm Village festival and our Dancing on the Bridges AiM event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59xiyjq9y0
We created a pamphlet to disseminate learning to teachers, dancers and many others.
We had 100s of comments, emails, posts and words from dancers from all over the world about AiM and the work.

Long term – AiM has resulted in many “spin offs” including:
-A brand new over 60s movement class, Rhythms Club in London.
-A regular “Chronic Pain” workshop in London
-Co-creation and involvement in Embodiment Circles – 55 groups in 23 countries working on embodiment.
-New community days for dancers in Budapest
-Further research on Art and Dance and collaboration between London and Budapest
-Boosting of classes and workshops in Rome with new organisers involved and new classes open to all.
-(Re)Development East/West workshop in Berlin.
-Further organisational development collaboration between Berlin and London.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 55970 Eur

Project Coordinator

DTAO MOVEMENTS LTD & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Associazione Culturale Ubuntu in Movimento
• Martina Weinheimer 5 Rhythmen
• Táncmeditáció Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft.