BACKGROUND

The project started with a smaller academic study ( done 2020 ,Kau university.) on dance pedagogy and unconventional didactic methods in salsa dance teaching.  Later further developed and tested at Kristofers studied on International dance didactics in contemporary times ( Uniarts Stockholm 2021). The project is still ongoing and developing as a part of Interacts intercultural interest and work with critical postcolonial dancepedagogy. The work is motivated by observations & experiences of inequality in perspectives on dance and difficulties to teach dances from the African diaspora in Europe. 

 THE METHOD & AMBITIONS

The method is focused on both an intercultural inclusive approach and defending dancecultures, combating repression of dances from the African diaspora. We look at how they can be remade, protected to maintain value, social justice and reclaim the intellectual, spiritual and cultural knowledge embodied in dance. 

The method puts a strong emphasis on rhythm & improvisation in diferent ways, and in a normcreative way cuestiones the conventional (and unreflected) pedagogic approaches and didactic focuses in some genres like for example Salsa.

The method focus on Musical awareness and specific embodiment of rhythm and improvisation for percussive dances such as: Salsa, Cuban popular dances & street dances.

 The work is aiming to decolonize and recreate the dancegenres true aestetichs, and also work as a intercultural strategy to create better understanding between people from different cultural & etnic backgrounds. Its a "spot on" tool to decrease the resistance in target groups with individuals show a lack of embodied understanding of rhythm or/and was showing difficulty assimilating, understanding and sometimes ....even resisting to accept the traditions, aesthetics/foundation of non western dances. Dance genres centered around rhythm and improvisation.

In a section named: the call it salsa in chapter 27 of the book The Owners of the Dance (Mcharty-Brown, 2018) describes the problem of the colonization of Salsa dance. The practice of salsa dancing in the United States has been manipulated, processed and ended up far from its roots and covered by a "white" facade. In clubs and dance studios, salsa is taught in a way that has more in common with ballroom dances than with the Latino dance culture. She believes that some of the Western constructions that are made take salsa even further away from the Afro-Latin dance forms that are characterized by an embodied relationship to music and improvisation. A relationship where the dance couple together explore the music and the physical connection to each other (Mcharty-Brown, 2018).