The Drum Beat 412 - Dance for Development

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Dance is a form of expression - non-verbal communication - that has been drawn upon in various contexts around the world to raise awareness, shape attitudes, and inspire people to address development issues such as human rights, health, and HIV/AIDS. This Drum Beat issue highlights a few of the initiatives, thinking pieces, and resources that illustrate this approach to social change.

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DANCE TO UNITE AND HEAL: HUMAN RIGHTS

1. Right to Dance: Dancing for Rights by Naomi M. Jackson (Ed.) According to this collection of papers written by dance scholars, practitioners, and artists, there appear to be connections between dance and human rights issues, most frequently in the context of dance being used as a tool for inciting people to violence, as a means of humiliation, and as a means of uniting communities in times of hardship. Dance has been employed as a nationalistic propaganda tool, as a means of healing individuals and groups after traumatic events, and as a form of theatrical expression and education by artists/choreographers who have undergone or witnessed gross violations of human rights.

2. Dance and Human Rights: An Interview with Christopher Bruce, Artistic Director, Rambert Dance Company by Stuart Sweeney This interview with choreographer Christopher Bruce explores strategies for using social themes as a source of inspiration for dance works. In the interviewer's words, "human rights themes have provided him with a strong source of inspiration"; several examples are presented. For instance, "Swansong" is a dance-drama based on the interrogation of a prisoner by 2 guards. Bruce's inspiration for a "Ghost Dances" was meeting the widow of tortured and murdered musician Victor Jara, victim of the coup which ousted the elected Allende government in Chile. He has also drawn on religious tradition and symbolism of the Day of the Dead with indigenous dance movements for the representation of the oppression of ordinary people of South American and their courage in the face of adversity. The interviewer concludes that Bruce "remains a passionate advocate for the role of dance and the arts in society and believes that seeing good work and the chance to perform, either as an amateur or a professional, can not only enrich lives, but can also be a civilising influence."

3. International Dance Day Introduced in 1982 by the International Dance Council (CID), an umbrella organisation within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Dance Day is celebrated each year on April 29 to increase awareness of the importance of dance among the general public, as well as to persuade governments all over the world to provide a proper place for dance in all systems of education. The announcement for the 2007 Day reads, "No child should be left without the opportunity to learn and to practice dance. Access to the art consitutes a right for every person, and children in particular. This right should be protected, in order to help meet their basic needs and reach their full potential. CID upholds dance instruction by qualified teachers at all levels of formal education, because dance constitutes a strong foundation for a person's well being."

4. Toward Training: The Meanings and Practices of Social Change Work in the Arts by Yael Harlap This study was commissioned by Judith Marcuse Projects to respond to a felt need for focused training in the field of art for social change, that is, for professional development opportunities and for the sharing of research and resources related to efforts to engage in art-making in collaboration with communities. One of the 46 organisations that participated in the research is the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, which combines education, community engagement, and performance. The head of this organisation comments, "We might go into a community where police and youth are engaging only in an adversarial way and by the time our workshop is over they're having a conversation; they're making a plan for how they can continue talking....We're never going in directively saying 'we want to increase communication,' but by virtue of what we do, in terms of providing a forum for collaboration, gathering people around an issue they can all support or they can support the importance of even if don't agree about, by virtue of doing that, participation and organization and social action often do extend from our work."

See Also:

5. Art for Social Change - Play Against Violence - South-East Europe

6. FIRE...where there's smoke - Canada

7. El Colegio del Cuerpo (College of the Body) - Colombia

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Photos Sought from Youth: Monitoring Project on Muslims in European Union (EU) Cities

The EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program (EUMAP) invites young Europeans to submit one or more photographs depicting their vision of Muslims in a diverse Europe. The winning photograph will be used on posters and brochures and distributed throughout Europe. In addition, as a follow-up to a series of preliminary background research reports published in 2007, detailed reports will be published in late 2008. The winner will receive 300 Euro.

Interested candidates - especially those 16 to 19 years of age - may send their photographs to eumap@osi.hu by September 28. For background information, click here.

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DANCE TO EDUCATE AND ADVOCATE: HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS

8. Sankofa Center for African Dance and Culture - Ghana This non-profit organisation aims to use the traditional dance, music, and theatre of Africa's past as a tool for HIV/AIDS education and community outreach among members of the current generation. The Sankofa Center's programming is two-fold: touring dance-dramas, which seek to educate marginalised villagers with little access to resources and information, and after-school programmes that engage youth between the ages of 13 and 19. Organisers say that the "[d]ance/dramas provide a great way to open up dialogue about HIV/AIDS, portraying issues such as safer-sex practices, ways of transmitting HIV/AIDS, tolerance of persons living with HIV/AIDS, enhancement of women's role in sexual health, and exposing the social and economic factors involved in daily Ghanaian life." After each performance, facts about HIV/AIDS are broken down into easily digestible material. Village youth get engaged in various ways, such as by creating choreography in an effort to continue to educate others about HIV/AIDS. Volunteers offer workshops, games, and dance lessons to encourage interested students to become peer health educators. Contact Ronnie Shaw sankofa_center@yahoo.com

9. Dance4Life - Global This interactive initiative draws on the medium of dance to unite young people around the world in pushing back HIV and AIDS. Dance4Life consists of 4 interconnected activities: 1) The Dance4Life Tour Team travels to schools to inspire youth through the participation of musicians, dancers, peer educators, and young people living with HIV. Video is also used as a teaching tool. 2) After this visit, which is meant to be empowering and "funky" at the same time, young people start their own actions - like fundraising for HIV prevention projects and advocacy efforts directed toward their governments. 3) As part of a life skills component, young people learn negotiation skills and entrepreneurial skills, and are exposed to information about sexuality and prevention, human rights, and the relationship between drug abuse and HIV. 4) The thematic Dance4Life Event, considered a reward for involvement, is held every 2 years on the Saturday before World AIDS Day (December 1). All the Events are linked live via satellite so that the youth can see that they are dancing together, all over the world. Contact info@dance4life.com

10. Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Campaign: Utilizing Creative Dramatized Traditional Taita Dance and Music to Increase Public Awareness about HIV/AIDS in Wongonyi Community by Leonard Majalia Mjomba "This [multi-part] work attempts to show how traditional Taita dance and music can creatively be utilized to sensitize and mobilize for social change in a rural community in Kenya. What I propose here is a totally horizontal model of communication aimed at steering clear off the conventional top-down models. By empowering the rural people, it is my expectation that they will be able to transmit messages concerning reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention in a manner that makes the messages intelligible to them, and within themselves, for long periods of time such that it leads to individual and community behavior change."

11. Dancing Feat - Mumbai, India Dancing Feat (DF) combines popular dance forms with group counselling and life skills education (LSE). The goal is to enhance the ability of high-risk vulnerable children and youth of Mumbai city to respond effectively to situations that place them at risk of HIV/AIDS, as well as to cope with emotions surrounding the losses and discrimination that they may experience due to the presence of the disease in their lives. DF's policy is that all children, irrespective of their HIV status, perform their dances together at public forums - sending the message of "no discrimination." This project looks beyond performance, envisioning the medium of dance as having an inherent therapeutic value for the participants and as a starting point for group interaction strategies. As part of this process, the children are also involved in the development of dances exploring themes related to their own lives, such as gender disparities, money and its ill use, and death of loved ones due to AIDS. Organisers intend to use these creations as a communication strategy in their community and the community at large. Contact Amrita Bhende dancingfeat@rediffmail.com OR ccdtrust@vsnl.com OR dancingfeat@shiamak.com

12. Réseau Arts Vivants (RAV) - Niger RAV is a network of national and international organisations that aims to promote performing arts as a means of communication for development. The network uses theatre, puppets, song, dance, and other local performing arts to raise awareness about various issues such as democratisation, HIV/AIDS, girls' education, reproductive health, and early marriage. In an effort to fulfill RAV's mission to spark dialogue on the local level and empower the public, RAV also offers artists the possibility to develop "innovative content" and introduces them to potential partners and facilitators. Contact Tobias Dierks comm-ded@intnet.ne

13. My Himachal Immunisation Initiative - India My Himachal is a non-political, non-religious organisation that has, every year since 2005, offered an immunisation programme within several remote villages in Kulla valley (in Himachal Pradesh, India). This programme draws on research to understand the health needs in these areas, as well as games, street theatre, and dance, to mobilise community members to vaccinate their children. A local organisation called SAHARA performs at these events, using humour and music to promote health messages. The leader of My Himachal comments that this group "is very popular and the skits elicit a lot of laughter. Some of the older village men join in with dancing....Villagers do the local Himachal Pradesh dance, called a Nati, with members of our Health Mela team joining in to form a large circle dance. The mood is very joyous and festive and the dance seems very symbolic of our connection here, high in the mountains." While the children are waiting for care (immunisation), games are played - with winners receiving prizes of a toothbrush and toothpaste (in an effort to encourage good dental hygiene). Contact Avnish Katoch avnish@himachal.us

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Please visit our archive of past Drum Beat issues to locate dance-related content that may be of interest to you.
See, for example:

• Let's Use Folk Arts and Traditional Media for Development
• Engaging Culture in Development
• ConunDRUMs - Communication Art!

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14. Singing for Life "No one will listen to us unless we bring our drums! No one will listen to us talk about Silimu - AIDS - unless we dance!" - Aida Namulinda, a farmer, and leader of the local village women's music and dance ensemble. This is a summary of 2 separate but interconnected articles focusing on the work of ethnomusicologist Gregory F. Barz of Vanderbilt University. Barz works with 45 women's groups who use music, dance, and drama to educate and support women in Uganda concerning HIV and AIDS in Uganda. As part of this experience, men bring out a set of kisoga xylophones, panpipes, tube fiddles, and drums from one of the huts to accompany the women of Aida's group as they summon and engage the community of farmers returning from the fields. The women encourage those gathered to dance, sing, and listen to the group's messages, which warn against participating in risky environments or engaging in unprotected sexual behaviour, or outline the support networks available within the greater community such as blood testing, post-test counselling, the effectiveness of condoms, and locations of condom distribution centres. Barz indicates that - when women sing and dance during group gatherings to introduce interventions specific to women and female youth - the dissemination of information, the mobilisation of resources that may occur as an offshoot, and/or the consciousness-raising that may be spurred "often occurs in no other form of HIV/AIDS sensitization or awareness intervention."

15. California Adolescent Nutrition and Fitness (CANFit) Program - California, USA CANFit is a statewide, non-profit organisation whose mission is to engage communities and build their capacity to improve the nutrition and physical activity status of California's low-income African American, American Indian, Latino, Asian American, and Pacific Islander youth 10-14 years old. With direct youth input, CANFit develops, evaluates, and disseminates culturally appropriate nutrition and physical activity educational materials and social marketing programmes such as P.H.A.T. (Promoting Healthy Activities Together), which embraces music, dance, emceeing, and other elements of hip-hop culture to deliver messages (in community centres, schools, after-school programmes) about healthy eating and physical activity. CANFit created a multi-media package to encourage community-based organisations to use hip hop to keep youth active and to educate them about the importance of healthy eating. CANFit also conducts a workshop in which participants learn to use hip-hop culture as a strategy to incorporate nutrition education and physical activity into existing programming. Contact info@canfit.org

16. Orphanage and Dance Company Unite for AIDS Awareness by Alexia Lewnes This article describes a strategy for drawing on children's participation in the performing arts to communicate AIDS messages. In mid-October 2005, members of the National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique, with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) support, began working with 35 children aged 8 to 16 from Arco Iris orphanage. The dancers had 45 days to choreograph and produce a 45-minute musical called "Window of Hope" to commemorate World AIDS Day (December 1) at Maputo's national theatre. As part of the preparation process, the troupe's director guided the children over a period of several weeks in talking about HIV/AIDS and in showing the troupe how they dance when alone at the orphanage so that the choreography would reflect movements natural to them. In the performance that emerged, the children used music, dance, and the spoken word to address issues of prevention, testing, treatment, stigma, and the pain of loss and discrimination. As implied here, this strategy seems to have a potential to impact not only audience members but also participants themselves. One 14-year-old orphan who took part in the performance is quoted here as saying, "This opened my heart...Dance has taught me not to discriminate."

17. Djole African Dance and Drum Company - United States Djole is an African dance and drum company that was formed as an avenue to get disadvantaged, inner-city youth off the streets and away from drugs and crime. Djole supplements after-school and educational programming in reading and math and runs a homework help centre, but its main focus is on dance. Djole offers West African dance and drumming lessons, to the end of mentoring youth to move into careers with a local adult dance company. In 2006, Djole exposed a group of young dancers to an AIDS-specific curriculum, and then took them on a journey to Africa to share the information they had learned about preventing HIV/AIDS with - and, importantly to also learn from - street children in Africa. Organisers explain that, in Africa, traditional African dance and drumming is a key means of disseminating information, so - with the help of their African partners - Djole learned, rehearsed, and performed an AIDS education performance in collaboration with 7 other groups of artists. Local television station partners and 2 filmmakers accompanied the group on the trip to shoot footage for a documentary. Contact info@djoledancecompany.org

18. Funu-Jëm: A Documentary about the Kaani-Gui Troupe of Senegal Funu-Jëm is a documentary focusing on a neighbourhood theatre and dance troupe in St. Louis, Senegal. The Kaani-Gui Troupe created a performance featuring dance and drumming which depicts the unfortunate consequences of a business-savvy father bringing HIV into his home. Inspired by the success of the Sengalese national tour, this film depicts the troupe - its travels, rehearsals, and performances - and is meant to serve as an educational tool for students and activists. It shares the grassroots agenda of a youth group struggling to make a difference, as well as the key lessons about HIV/AIDS transmission and its effect on the family unit.

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No development programme is likely to succeed unless communication is at the heart of its conception and implementation.

[For context, see The Drum Beat #410.]

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This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

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