Body is an existential ground of culture

This project aims to develop an ongoing interdisciplinary dance project. The target audience comprises unaccompanied refugee minors living in the shelters in Athens. These shelters are managed by The Home Project; an NGO located in Athens.

This initiative is the result of a partnership of artists and researchers from Brazil. It encompasses the research projects of two master’s students; Patricia Machado (Master in Art and Education) from the State University of Parana (UNESPAR/Brazil), and Bianca Beneduzi (Choreomundus - International Master in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage). Their supervisors are professor Dr. Andrea Sério Bertoldi, Head of the Department of Human Rights at the UNESPAR, and Professor Dr. Chi-Fang Chao, Choreomundus local convenor and senior lecturer at the University of Roehampton (United Kingdom), respectively.

How does dance work within refugee shelters? How does dance empower and create affective spaces in the community?

Social vulnerability and displacement are important topics in the refugee context. This project aims to contribute to the discussion on how to use dance-based engagement in these environments. Considering that the body is an existential ground of culture, the embodied experience constitutes a fundamental way of analyzing human interaction in a cultural world.

We used the processes and methodologies discussed in our Masters research projects to create an interdisciplinary dance workshop inside shelters. The residents in the workshops partipated weekly during the three months. The first edition of this project happened from June through August, 2019. Currently, a second event is being planned to take place in the summer 2021 in partnership with the same shelters.