Dance Re-Skilled Erasmus Project

Project Title

Dance Re-Skilled

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

SHIFT (originally Dance Re-skilled) was a collaboration between Northern Ballet (NB), Psico Ballet Maite Leon Foundation (PBMLF)and Stichting Misiconi (SM) which aimed to develop a pedagogy for teaching dance technique to adults with additional learning support needs (ALSN), shared through the creation of an Online Educational Resource (OER). This project grew from a need to fill a gap in current inclusive dance practice and the resources available to dance practitioners at community, educational and professional levels by focusing specifically on the development of technical dance skills in dancers with ALSN.

The project involved 9 members of staff from the three partner organisations and 25 dancers with learning disabilities whom the companies work with regularly. An additional 4 associate partners were involved who provided expert knowledge in inclusive approaches (from Codarts and Inrodans), Joint Hypermobility Syndrome (from the University of Edinburgh) and external evaluation on the impact of the project (University of Leeds). 5 sub-contractors provided specialised services to document the process and produce the website (photographers, videographer, web designer).

The project consisted of five residencies (learning, teaching and training activities) held in Leeds (UK), Rotterdam (NL) and Madrid (ES) and two virtual multiplier events. The first residency (UK, Dec 2018) enabled the partners to share best practice, deepen their knowledge of safe practice and injury prevention in relation to dancers with ALSN and develop monitoring and evaluation methods to be used throughout the project. The following three residencies each focused on a different area of dance pedagogy; alignment and strength (UK, Jan 2019), balance and co-ordination (NL, April 2019), and travel and elevation (ES, Sept 2019). During these residencies, exercises, activities and approaches to delivery were explored and developed which were then tried and developed with each partners’ dancers with learning disabilities over a 10-week period using the monitoring and evaluation tools developed to measure and chart progress. During the fifth residency (UK) all partners focused on evaluation and reflection, finalising content and the creation of an initial brief for the SHIFT dance OER.

In addition, two multiplier events raised awareness and shared the intellectual outputs of the project. Due to the pandemic these became virtual events hosted by SM (Mixable Fest, Feb 2021) and NB (SHIFTing Perceptions conference, July 2021). Both events involved other leading organisations in the dance sector such as Stopgap Dance Company (UK), Introdans (NL), Holland Dance Festival (NL), ISTD (UK), Royal Opera House (UK) and Cando Co Dance Company (UK) and reached an international audience from 24 countries.

The project results are shared via the OER www.shiftdance.eu which is available in English, Spanish and Dutch. The OER provides a toolkit that includes instructional videos, information on approaches and principles that underpin the pedagogy and feedback methods. Download-able teaching resources that were developed through the project include an assessment wheel for monitoring and evaluating dance students and cool down resources. It also houses the blog that was used throughout the project to share the partners process and reflections giving a greater insight into the project methodology and findings.

The impact of the project on the participants has been significant. For the dancers with ALSN these have included positive psychological benefits (improved self-perception, growth mind set, internal/emotional processing and greater agency) physical and health improvements (body awareness, movement and coordination, weight management, fitness levels) and social benefits (communication skills and ability to be expressive, sense of inclusion). For the practitioners, it has enabled the cultivation of a more reflexive practice through activities such as sharing, discussing and viewing others teaching methods, identifying key teaching strategies, and observing individuals in order to develop teaching strategies. In the wider European dance sector, it has connected several leading organisations that are continuing to find ways to work together to address inclusivity in dance training.

Through coming together, these organisations gained an understanding of current best practice and created pedagogy that addressed effective approaches to delivery with a focus on safe practice and are raising the profile and skills of dancers with ALSN across Europe.

Project Website

http://shiftdance.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 147785,1 Eur

Project Coordinator

Northern Ballet Limited & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Stichting Misiconi
• FUNDACIÓN PSICO BALLET MAITE LEÓN