Dare to Dance An interdisciplinary research on how the arts and education can complement each other to diminish social segregation in the Netherlands

Abstract

Current debate on renewing the curriculum for primary and secondary education in the Netherlands has opened a window to incorporate elements of high-quality intercultural education into the curriculum. Art organizations can be of value in this process due to projects which stimulate intercultural sensitivity through the pedagogical power of embodied movement. This interdisciplinary research has shown that teachers wish for students to feel less stigmatized as well as to contribute to a less stigmatized world in which people behave positively towards gender, ethnic, age and cultural difference, but also difference in educational level. If art organizations are given a chance to work directly with educational institutions to create a new curriculum in which embodied movement forms a central element, we might have the ability to make changes in our social dynamics. As this is not a matter of nature but of cultural performativity – a power that we construct based on our own norms and values and which influences the way we behave toward each other in social situations – it is through an adaptation of our norms and values that we can make adaptions in how we engage with each other. Art organizations know it and the world of education cannot deny it. I hope this time holds with it the opportunity for education to dare to be open to the pedagogical power of the art of dance.