Dancing Histor(y)ies, the European project aimed at linking communities and cultural heritage through dance, continues with new activities and the definition of the Model for the enhancement of cultural heritage sites through performing arts, community engagement, and support for territorial development.
DON’T MISS DH’S LAST STEPS!
Dance companies have ended the round of study visits in the heritage sites that will host the DH Festival in Summer 2024, visiting Tharros and Ostia Antica in Italy and Volos in Greece.
Study visits have been key to start connecting the dance companies with the local territories, heritage sites and communities. Explorative walks in the heritage sites, storytelling experiences, performances attendance, meeting with local stakeholders and technicians and, most of all, in person meetings with the local communities have allowed participants to get together and start dialoguing about the artistic processes that will be at the core of the next year of activities.
Dance companies, local communities and the management of the heritage sites have started sharing stories, perspectives, challenges and opportunities to co-create the next DH Festival performances, with the unique approach of merging local heritage, communities’ stories and artistic interpretation and interventions. We can’t wait to start co-creating!
Partners have met in Volos (Greece) on the occasion of the last study visit on 26-27 November.
They have assessed the first 6 months of the project, drawn conclusions on the research and site visits phase and planned next activities to transit to the second phase of the project, the practical implementation of the Model in the different Countries through the organisation of the DH Festival in the selected sites.
In particular, they have shared an overview of the DH Festival and started brainstorming about its features, deciding which Dance Companies will perform in which Sites and reflecting about the implementation of the co-creation workshops with the local communities.
As per the next steps, during December and January the heritage sites will work with their local stakeholders, communities and selected dance companies to define the main features of the DH Festival and to plan the concrete steps for its implementation. The new year will kick off the artistic co-creation workshops and the local activities with the communities; again, we can’t wait to see how these will become concrete!
The aim of the project is to create an efficient model for valorisation of heritage sites through performing arts, community engagement and territorial development to be disseminated and exploited at the European level, in which the material cultural heritage of the sites and the immaterial heritage of local communities involved are fused together through the creativity of dance.
The Dancing Histor(y)ies Model is the product of the collective work of an expanded network of 13 partners from 11 countries in the European Union.
For its implementation partners followed a two-way research process adopting both a bottom-up and an up-down approach in order to collect data from various sources of information, both from the research results and the experience of each partner.
The DH model is the final step of the following processes:
The results and findings of these processes led to the conclusion that an efficient model for valorisation of heritage sites through performing arts, community engagement and territorial development should consist of the following components:
And the following transversal activities: Gender Equality, Accessibility, Environmental Sustainability, Social Inclusion, Continuity.
The model will be soon available, we’ll be back soon with further updates!
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
