Diversity in European Higher Dance Education

The project Diversity in European Higher Dance Education (DDE) was developed to address a rising need in BA level dance education in Europe to address issues of diversity and social justice. Over the past years, following the rise of global social movements addressing issues of gender, race, and geopolitics, students and staff of dance HEIs have raised questions and concerns, as well as pointing out institutional blindspots. DDE was set up to address the need for better tools for dealing with diversity, the desire for inter-institutional sharing of challenges and good practices, as well as the need to take time to hear and address the issues coming from student cohorts and staff regarding diversity and social justice.

The primary objectives of DDE were: to develop literacy around diversity and social justice in the three researched dance HEIs to map the current state of diversity practices in the three HEIs to promote dialogue between student cohorts, staff, and direction within each HEIs to promote inter-institutional sharing and learning to develop a comparative analysis of the three dance BA programs to propose recommendations aimed at furthering diversity and social justice within the three HEIs Through this work and its dissemination within the field of dance HE and more broadly art HE, we aim at impacting a large pool of dance HEIs in the European landscape.

The project was organized around five key activities: 1. The first, at the Utrecht University, aimed at nourishing group cohesion for the research team and developing a conceptual and methodological shared framework for the project 2-4. The second, third, and fourth activities were organized as fieldwork weeks, each time in one of the dance HEIs; first at P.A.R.T.S., Brussels, then in SKH, Stockholm, and finally in the Manufacture, Lausanne. With each fieldwork week, the team shared dance practices with current students and alumni, organized focus group discussions and interviews with relevant staff around issues of diversity and social justice. After each fieldwork week, the DDE team worked on transcribing and coding all audio materials (around 35-40 hours of material for each HEI) and developing a preliminary report for each HEI. 5. The final activity was organized at the University of Amsterdam; it aimed at analyzing the data gathered and working towards the project outputs as well as final dissemination events and included a first try-out of the methodology of the teachers’ training.

DDE has produced three concrete outputs: A public report entitled 'dancing with'. The report develops a comparative analysis of the three dance HEIs, including good practices, challenges, and recommendations, organized around the questions of Access, Hosting, and Contribution. Furthermore, the report develops a critical questioning of the role of dance HE within the diverse European landscape, where different forms and practices of dance co-exist. A course for dance HE students entitled 'Dancing Across Difference'. The 7,5 ECTS course is organized around topics related to diversity and social justice while including the embodied character of dance and the specific manifestations of diversity and social justice within the dance field. A training for teachers and staff entitled 'Towards a Pluriversal Dance Education'. In this course, structured around bi-annual sessions, staff and teachers of dance HEI will become acquainted with issues of diversity and social justice, receiving tools to better deal with questions and problems when they appear, and in becoming pro-active in creating increasingly inclusive and diverse HEIs.