Case studies

Through the course of this project, all of our partners (except CEMPER) will be conducting local case studies in order to research how we can establish new or renewed models for facilitating participatory dance events. The purpose of these case studies is to cooperate thoroughly and on a long-term basis with dance enthusiasts and dance community to expand and improve the resources we offer for dance communities of intangible cultural heritage. It is essential to prompt a co-creative collaboration between the dance community and museums, so that dancing with different variations becomes a natural part of an archive and museums documentation and dissemination work founded on dialogue, and resources from the communities of dance. Thus, the case studies have been structured in steps as follows:

First step is to investigate and do fieldwork in a chosen dance community or local community consisting of many dance groups. The cultural workers and researchers (of the project partners) will get to know and cooperate with dance heritage communities in order to investigate issues, concerns, and challenges faced in contemporary society, as well as hopes and dreams for the future. This would be the first stage of interaction with the communities, in which we will get to learn about their expectations and needs so that we can understand each other’s perspectives when we meet for co-creative processes at a later stage.

In this part of the project the research questions are being tested through practice-based research, considering the good methods already shared and discussed in the workshops. The research questions deal with how the employees as facilitators and curators can help the local dance community to transmit and safeguard their dance traditions? What can museum workers and dance experts/researchers do within the archive- research- and museum context?  How can we create dance events on the premisses of the dance heritage bearers?  How can we cooperate with their needs and wishes for dance safeguarding, awareness raising, and dissemination both on and off the museum arena? 

The next step is to meet for co-creation of strategies for awareness raising, visibility, relevance, and creation of activities that promote the gathering of people on the social dance floor. Through participative meetings in the museum/institution the dance community and curators/facilitators will be coming up with good ideas to apply in the field when preparing and organizing the events of practice exhibitions.

 The heritage community will be offered guidance in developing safeguarding strategies that best suit them, as well as tools from our project such as participatory dancing events, tools on dance pedagogy, communication, and tools to create an event of practice exhibition. Moreover, the community and the cultural workers and researchers in this project will develop tools for the museum and institutional arena on how to work methodologically and strategically to make dance as ICH relevant in today’s European context.

Alongside working on understanding the community and co-creating good strategies for safeguarding and dissemination of ICH, the project will be documenting dances specifically tied to the geographic region where each case study takes place, as well as searching for archive material of relevant dance heritage in the region.

The case studies’ outcomes will be discussed in the DANCE-ICH consortium, and our experiences will be written into guidelines of the curator/facilitator role, and handbook of events of practice.

From case studies to events of practice exhibition

The exhibition concept is twofold: the events of practice, and dance installations/exhibition modules. The events of practice will be a series of dance events in a museum or institution setting, open for any citizen to join. The concept will be a result of the co-creation between the dance heritage community and cultural workers/researchers of this project’s partners. The events will happen in the exhibition room or close by the exhibited interactive dance material. The duration is from 6 months to one year.

The content and ideas gathered during the field research and the dance workshops, conceptualised by co-creative processes with the heritage communities, will be at the core of the digital exhibition, which will be developed and produced together with all partner institutions. The documentation of today’s living participatory dancing will be – documentation of and material from the work of the co-creative processes of heritage community and cultural workers – which will create the main content for the shared digital exhibition through different multimedia installations. This exhibition will have material from all countries in the project and will be locally adapted to the relevance of each institution participating in this project. Installations will be interactive and pedagogic, but each institution will choose the appropriate way of disseminating the films.  

Finally, we hope to be able to have 6 good but different answers to these questions:

·       What is the role of a specific cultural heritage institution in relation to safeguarding dancing as ICH, and in relation to different heritage communities and other institutions?

·       What are the fundamental factors, practices, and infrastructures that are sustainable in different socio-economical settings/dimensions?

·       What needs to be locally adapted according to specific bearers, groups and communities, and different dancing traditions?

You can find more information about the local case studies on this page.

Case study at SEM, Slovenia

“At SEM, we decided to research and spread knowledge about two dances within the framework of the project: sotiš and šamarjanka, which are inscribed in the national Register of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Given that the sotiš and šamarjanka dances are still very much alive and are danced in the same environment, we agreed in the field with heritage communities that we will conduct the case study in an area where these two dances are still danced at weddings, parties, dances, celebrations,...” 

Case study in Greece

“Having as a starting point the nature and aim of the Greek institutions that participate in the consortium, i.e.:

  • Hellenic Folklore Research Centre (HFRC)-Academy of Athens (AA) and 

  • The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)-School of Physical Education and Sport Science (SPESS)-Greek Traditional Dance (GTD) 

that focus on ethnographic, educational and academic research, and on archives of Greek traditional dance, the Greek case study focuses on:

  • ethnographic, educational and academic research with archival material and 

  • students specialised on Greek traditional dance of the NKUA-SPESS (core community) who interact with several heritage communities in Greece and abroad.

Indicatively, Heritage Dance Communities refer to:

  • Core community (supra-local dance heritage) and 

  • Local dance heritage communities including their diasporic and supra-local manifestations.

Emphasis will be given to:

  • applied multi-sited ethnographic research

  • performed public ethnography

  • performing dance and other dance related cultural practices (for example narration, performance, research, education, archiving, heritage policies implementation etc.)

In addition, representative case studies in collaboration with specific dance communities will be conducted to explore UNESCO’s Convention on Safeguarding ICH (2003) implementation.”

Case study in Hungary

“The focus of our research is on the concept of “heritage”, the “afterlife” of the former tradition after the disintegration of traditional peasant culture, “heritage communities”, contemporary tradition-making practices of cultural memory and representation, new constructions of tradition and their local, regional and national identity-formation aspects.

One of the significances of the project is that the participating researchers plan to research the priority issues in the same conceptual and analytical framework, creating the possibility of comparison, through theoretical and methodological reflections in the context of group work, in the fields selected for their model-like nature, which represent different social contexts, situations, and environments. The research considers dance as intangible cultural heritage, thus it will be carried out in communities with dance heritage whose heritage is included in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.”

Case study at ZRC SAZU, Slovenia

“The starting point of the case study is the local community in the surroundings of Ljubljana, in the semi-rural area. Their heritage is in a kind of (what I call) grey area, because people are not aware that they have a music-dance tradition. But at least one person was aware of it 40 years ago. 

There is a magnetic tape recorded by Rudi Sečnik, locally referred to as Cankarjev Rudi, who recognized traditional dance tunes from his youth as valuable. In the 80's he recorded himself playing the button-box accordion, with the aim that these tunes would not be lost and forgotten. He gave a copy of the recorded material to his sister, who left this legacy to her granddaughter. By a happy coincidence, it found its way into the archives of the Institute of Ethnomusicology. This sound material, directly relateded to the dance heritage of the place and completely overlooked, will be the starting point for a creative collaboration with the local community. To paraphrase, Institute’s researchers will help a local community getting back their heritage. Planned research and dissemination activities would include and will depend on the expressed needs and desires in the local community (school, municipality, cultural association).  

The aim of this part of the project is to introduce their heritage from the archives, to research their past and contemporary dance culture, to give them back their music and dance as important identifiers of place and time, to co-create dance events for them and outsiders based of their expectations and needs, and to organise activities and the events of practice exhibition together.”

Case study at ASTRA Museum, Romania

Folk dances are part of complex cultural manifestations (involving dancing, costumes, rituals) which offer an opportunity for the members of the community to gather and socialize – be it thorough active or passive participation. In the case of the group of carolling lads from the village of Rucăr, we have analysed how the group comes together and promotes traditional dances, the socio-cultural context in which these dances take place, the typology of the costumes worn, dancing as an important component of the winter holidays rituals in the community from Rucăr, the main socio-cultural factors that contribute to the transmission of dance practices and the specific traits of these dances.

Moreover, during the research we aimed at identifying the degree of cohesion of the members of the community, the participative actions of the group and the presence of three defining traits: the songs – carols and well-wishing shouts, music – instruments used, melodic line, and choreography – specific moves for each type of dance.

The role of our research is also to identify the best ways of developing cyclical, active dance programs that are participative, allowing the public to take part in the cultural manifestations belonging to the group of carolling lads from Rucăr.

Case study in Trondheim

In Trondheim, Norway, where the leading partner of our Dance - ICH project is based, the project is lucky to have two “neighbours” as partners. The Norwegian centre for traditional music and dance collaborates with Rockheim and Ringve – national music museum of Norway, both situated in the city of Trondheim, in the middle of Norway. This is also the city where we will implement a common case study project with a focus on the Norwegian folk dances that the general people dance from the 1950 and upwards to today.

Even though many of the dances, like reinlender (Shottis), walts, mazurka, polka and the village dance from our region pols are older, we choose to include other more modern dances as swing, tango, foxtrot, and slow as well. People that currently are in their 80’s and 90’s still remember dancing at dance parties every weekend at local community houses, disclosing a wish to safeguard participatory dancing across generations with special attention towards children and youths.

Our aim for this case study is to search for a sustainable model on developing safeguarding and co-creation strategies between cultural heritage institutions (Sff and Ringve/Rockheim) and heritage communities that best suit the heritage communities aim to safeguard their dancing. The model should aim for methods on responding to bottom-up initiatives, as well as offer guidance on tools from our project such as participatory dancing events, dance pedagogy, and creation of events of practice exhibition(s).