Kickoff of the Erasmus+ Cooperation partnership on Diversity in European Higher Dance Education.

From 13 to 16 September, University College Utrecht (NL) will host the launch of a research project on diversity in higher dance education. PARTS (Brussels), La Manufacture (Lausanne, CH), Stockholm University of the Arts (SE) and University College Utrecht will collaborate intensively for two years on the question of how, as internationally oriented institutions, dance schools deal with diversity and the fight against discrimination within their structures.

The field of dance is a specific case in the global issues surrounding racism, sexism and discrimination, because of the inherently international nature of the dance field, the exploration of artistic and physical boundaries inherent in dance practices and the complexity of roles taken by students and teachers.

A team of teachers and alumni from the three dance schools in Brussels, Lausanne and Stockholm, assisted by two diversity experts from Utrecht, will closely examine practices around diversity in the three schools, in order to learn from each other's best practices and to come up with a triple output: a report on the three dance schools' dealings with diversity, the design of a training course on diversity for dance teachers, and the drafting of a practical and theoretical course on diversity that will be implemented in the schools' programmes and made available to the wider field.

The four-day meeting in Utrecht will kick off the project. In November 2023, the research team will spend a full week in PARTS working with students, alumni and teachers, followed by similar research weeks in Stockholm and Lausanne. A website will soon be launched on which developments within the project will be publicly shared.

PARTS is the coordinator of the project.
This project takes place within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme, and is co-financed by the European Union.