Peer Learning Workshops are an essential part of UP2DANCE project. Organized by dance companies, they aim to facilitate the exchange of good practices among partners, leading to the production of a Manual of Good practices which is one of the tangible results of the project.

We are please to announce that the UP2DANCE project reached another fundamental milestone – between 12th and 15th of April 2021 the fourth Peer Learning Workshop, took place, hosted online by ICK Dans Amsterdam. This time, the aims of these workshops were to analyse the training methods and the documentation of artistic work related to those trainings in order to identify the core skills and capacities which are being expected from dancers. The second goal was to introduce and discuss the role of Dancer,
Dance, Teacher, Choreographer, and Repetitor.

ABOUT THE HOST OF THIS WORKSHOP

The International Choreographic Arts Centre (ICK) is a platform for contemporary dance founded in 2009 by Emio Greco | Pieter C. Scholten. This city dance company of Amsterdam is built on three pillars: ICK-Company (producing international dance performances), ICK-Artist Space (supporting new makers) and ICK-Academy (stimulating education and research projects). The ICK Company is supplemented by a junior company: ICK Next. From 2021, the ICK Artist Space is the Amsterdam production house for contemporary dance.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PROGRAMME

Researcher Suzan Tunca was the facilitator of the whole UP2DANCE workshop:
• Every morning a Double Skin/Double Mind class was given by ICK Researcher Suzan Tunca. You can read more about DS/DM method founded by Emio Greco | Pieter C. Scholten below.
• Monday 12th: Sharing practices – a contemporary dance class combining different techniques in a personal way from 15:00 – 16:15. The partner running this practice was Bruno Duarte – Dancer and Choreographer from Companhia de Danca de Almada.
• Tuesday 13th: Sharing practice ‘Spiritual Body’ from 13:15 – 14:30. The partner running this practice was Valerio Longo – Balletto di Roma
• Thursday 15th from 13:15 till 14:45: a lecture and workshop on the Toolkit Sensorium by Artistic Coordinator Academy and Dance Teacher Kelly Hirina – ICK Dans Amsterdam.

ABOUT THE ICK STAFF

Suzan Tunca is a researcher and a dance teacher. Essential elements in dance are ‘trusting each other’, ‘how to make the difference in conveying the message of a choreography’, and ‘discovering the sensitivity of your body, what possibilities it has. Which techniques can you take from dance for that? Ingredients that a dancer
cannot do without, and that can also be learned a lot from in the world outside dance.
Kelly Hirana is artistic coordinator of the arts education branch of ICK and a former ICK dancer. She is also an avid dance, pilates and yoga teacher. Kelly uses a variety of pedagogical methods that help students feel comfortable and safe in the classroom while building motivation for “learning”, thereby achieving their
learning goals.

ABOUT THE DOUBLE SKIN/ DOUBLE MIND METHOD

Double Skin/Double Mind (DS/DM) is the dance method of Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten. You discover the sensitivity of your body through the basic principles of Breathing, Jumping, Expanding and Reducing. You need the sensitivity for the possibilities that arise from your body when creating choreographic material. The
method is therefore the basis of all performances by Greco and Scholten.
“DS/DM is a way of preparing the body for dance that is inherent to your thinking and your imagination. It needs a connection with your own choices, also during the improvisation with other elements and choreographic materials. The experience creates a condition and an opening, it is not something fixed by rules that say: this is how you should dance. It is rather the opposite, you use it, and then you contrast it in an open field of intervention and manipulation”.
– Emio Greco-

MORE ABOUT UP2DANCE

UP2DANCE (2019-2021) is an Erasmus+ project aimed at harmonising knowledge, competences and skills in the dance profession and dance education at European level. The aim is to increase the mobility of dance professionals within Europe.
This project is a collaboration between Balletto di Roma (Italy), Derida Dance Center (Bulgaria), Polish Dance Theatre (Poland), ICK Dans Amsterdam (Netherlands), Companhia de Danca de Almada (Portugal) and Magenta Consultoria Projects(Spain), co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.

For more information and updates, please follow the @up2danceproject Facebook page.