Artículo

Dance-theater and meditation as an approach to develop and practice intercultural competences

Can dance facilitate, help and/or improve socializing between people, particularly in youth and adult contexts? If someone experiences on her/his skin through dance-theatre how it feels when you are rejected, refused, held at the margin, ignored, abused, bullied - characteristics of machismo - could this bring greater sensitivity, flexibility, empathy in order to overcome one’s cultural closure? Portera develops a list of intercultural competences. Reading this chart, I notice that those who possess those knowledge, skills, and attitudes can hardly be macho since they are open and accept and respect others in their difference. This is why machismo seems to me a useful topic for my study. This research project proposes dance-theatre and meditation as an approach to develop and support the acquisition of intercultural competences. It relies on focus groups, semi-structured interviews and autobiographies/autoethnographies. The first phase consisted of participating, observing and analyzing dance workshops and body practices of different styles stemming from different cultures (Afro-Contemporary, Contemporary, Dabke, Capoeira, Tibetan Yoga, and Meditation). In the second phase, I will accompany the dance project CultureClash in schools in Saarland (Germany). The aim of the project is to support integration and dialogue between local students and refugee students from Syria through dance. At the same time, through a focus group at university (students, artists, musicians, dancers, teachers, with or without migrational background) we will work in a creative dance-theatre and meditation workshop. In the workshop, we will develop and practice the acquisition of intercultural competencies working on a specific subject: machismo.  

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