Identify - Realise - Dance

Dance is an international language, but we felt we lacked the possibilities to collaborate with our European fellow institutes. Many of the further dancers we train will eventually work on an international field, but there are few possibilities for them to rehearse this during their training. The Finnish dance education has an impressive and extensive history, but we felt it could also limit us and therefore wanted to see how dance is taught in another country.

We wanted to form a lasting and fruitful companionship with another dance school in a foreign country. Also we wanted to offer our teachers the possibility to learn from and with their international colleagues. Furthermore we wanted to provide our students an experience to dance in an international environment resembling the multicultural scene of professional dance world.

The teachers of both partners traveled to the other school, learned from it's operating principles and everyday life and saw different types of dance classes during their visits. We also met online for discussions. The students (16) from each country traveled to the other country and prepared a 40-minute dance performance together.

The 16 selected students from both countries prepared and performed a 40-minute dance performance named Tail but no Head. The topic of the piece was disinformation and lies. The work was performed 6 times (3 times in Vantaa, Finland and 3 times in Tallinn, Estonia). Another important result is the increased understanding of different ways to build a dance curriculum and organize dance education. We realised that even though the ways sometimes differed, the goal of both institutions were suprisingly similar. From the teachers' point of view it was refreshing to get to know professionals from another country and see how they worked. Altogether the project was a great learning experience to students, teachers and institutions alike.