Contemporary Dance Didactics: Explorations in Theory and Practice - A CLOSE ENCOUNTERS conference

Contemporary Dance Didactics: Explorations in Theory and Practice - A CLOSE ENCOUNTERS conference with lecture demonstrations, round table discussions and paper presentations at DOCH in Stockholm, 28-31 October, 2012. For the first time in Scandinavia, DOCH is organizing a conference on the theory and practice of contemporary dance didactics.

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The purpose of the conference is to introduce and share research, discuss, demonstrate and try different forms of dance didactics with participants from Sweden and internationally. Furthermore to illuminate how dance didactics have developed and how this field of  teaching and learning can grow. Many well-known international dance scholars, dance teachers and dance researchers are invited.

To stay updated with the conference be sure to visit this website regularly.

»You will find the timetable for the conference here.

»You will find what the keynote speakers will talk about here.
» More information of the contents of the different presentations is here.

The registration is open. To register for the conference, you need to do two things: fill in the registration form and pay the conference fee. »You will find all the information you need  to register here.

For more information, please contact

Kay Artle, Conference Coordinator, Departement of Dance Pedagogy
E-mail: kay.artle@doch.se

Thanks to:

Hello Gabriele Klein Keynote Speaker at CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

What role has the teaching of dance in our contemporary society?
The relevance of contemporary dance is growing continuously, not only in the artistic and the cultural, but also in the social and political context. Dance and choreography has become an experimental field that asks questions about the social place of art. At the same time it is initiating and embodying new experimental social and cultural practices. Current social issues such as acceleration and mobility are reflected and negotiated in the collectiv, collaborativ and participatory processes in dance-research and contemporary choreography.

Why is teaching dance so important?
The fact that in the 21st century dance is not necessarily tied to a certain aesthetic position nor to the virtuosity of a dance technique, questions the handling of movement in our daily lives, as they appear for example in ‚social choreographies‘. Social choreographies are happening everywhere: in artistic and cultural performances in train stations, political demonstrations or military parades. They experience the aesthetic of the social order as a performative appearance of space, body, movement and subjeces. Teaching dance from this point of view is one of the possibilities to initiate a critical reflection on the dealing with motion in its political potential or in other words: dance is kinaesthetic politics which helps us to understand – by bodiliy experience - the kinetic or fluid modernity.
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