Dance, Access and Inclusion Perspectives on Dance, Young People and Change

The arts have a crucial role in empowering young people with special needs through diverse dance initiatives. Inclusive pedagogy that integrates all students in rich, equitable and just dance programmes within education frameworks is occurring alongside enabling projects by community groups and in the professional dance world where many high-profile choreographers actively seek opportunities to work across diversity to inspire creativity. Access and inclusion is increasingly the essence of projects for disenfranchised and traumatised youth who find creative expression, freedom and hope through dance. This volume foregrounds dance for young people with special needs and presents best practice scenarios in schools, communities and the professional sphere. International perspectives come from Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Timor Leste, the UK and the USA.

Sections include:

• inclusive dance pedagogy
• equality, advocacy and policy
• changing practice for dance education
• community dance initiatives
• professional integrated collaborations

Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction

Part I Inclusive dance pedagogy

Chapters
1.1 Making no difference: Inclusive dance pedagogy

1.2 Developing inclusive dance pedagogy: Dialogue, activism and aesthetic transformative learning

Case narratives
1.3 Beyond technique: Diversity in dance as a transformative practice

1.4 Exploring the relationship between dance and disability: A personal journey

1.5 'Sowing Dance' body movement for children from six months to three years old: The experience in Mesquita, Brazil

1.6 Dance for children with dyspraxia: The impact of Royal Academy of Dance, London, projects

Part II Equality, advocacy and policy

Chapters
2.1 Values and principles shaping community dance

2.2 The ugly duckling: Stories of dance and disability from Denmark and South Africa

2.3 Dance, education and participation: The 'Planters' project in Girona, Spain

Case narratives
2.4 Building identity through dance: Exploring the influence of dance for individuals with special needs

2.5 Encountering and embodying difference through dance: Reflections on a research project in a primary school in Finland

2.6 New spaces for creativity and action: Recent developments in the Applied Performing Arts in Catalonia

Part III Changing practice for dance education

Chapters
3.1 Supporting change: The identification and development of talented young dancers with disabilities

3.2 Reflections from a/r/tography: Perspectives to review creative activities with special needs children

3.3 Learning in action: Intersecting approaches to teaching dance in Timor-Leste and Australia

Case narratives
3.4 Exploring disability and dance: A Papua New Guinean experience

3.5 ASEAN Para Games 2015: Dancing for inclusivity

3.6 Dancing partners/ dancing peers: A wheelchair dance collaborative

Part IV Community dance initiatives

Chapters
4.1 Dance and affect: Re-connecting minds to bodies of young adult survivors of violence, India

4.2 Digital stories: Three young people’s experience in a community dance class

4.3 Community initiatives for special needs dancers: An evolving ecology in Singapore

Case narratives
4.4 Celebrating diversity: A Jamaican story

4.5 “I Can… “: A Cambodian inclusive arts project

4.6 Learning together through dance: Making cultural connections in Indonesia

4.7 From the ground up: A Portuguese dance education collaboration with regional communities

Part V Professional integrated collaborations

Chapters
5.1 Pulling back from being together: An ethnographic consideration of dance, digital technology and Hikikomori in Japan and the UK

5.2 Freefalling with ballet

5.3 Troubling access and inclusion: A phenomenological study of children’s learning opportunities in artistic-educational encounters with a professional contemporary dance production

Case narratives
5.4 Dancing in wheelchairs: A Malaysian story

5.5 'Twilight': Connection to place through an intergenerational multi-site dance project

5.6 Navi’s story: Access to collective identity through intercultural dance in the Fiji Islands

5.7 The value of an extended dance residency: Restless Dance Theatre in a South Australian school 2014-2015

Stephanie Burridge lectures at LASALLE College of the Arts and Singapore Management University and is the Series Editor for Celebrating Dance in Asia and the Pacific (Routledge).

Charlotte Svendler Nielsen is Associate Professor and Head of Educational Studies at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, research cluster 'Embodiment, Learning and Social Change', University of Copenhagen, Denmark.