The WEAVE project leveraged the Europeana communication channels to share key messages and raise awareness of the project in the cultural sector. In addition to publishing editorials on the Europeana.eu website, WEAVE also featured on Europeana Pro.
The Europeana Pro blog is the Europeana’s portal for professionals, and is used to disseminate expertise, tools and policies in the cultural heritage sector to embrace digital change and encourage partnerships that foster innovation. In specific, the Europeana Pro blog has 28,000 monthly visitors.
The various entries published by WEAVE on Pro share to cultural heritage professionals a wealth of information regarding WEAVE outcomes, capacity building efforts, the events, and more.
Friends Families and Travellers have a long history of leading on trainings, campaigns, producing educational materials, curating artistic collaborations and working horizontally with Gypsy, Roma and Travellers. In 2021 Suzanna King approached C-DaRE’s Rosa Cisneros to choreograph the dance portion of the restaging of Crystal’s Vardo, a piece directed by King herself. The piece was being reworked for camera and King was keen to develop certain sections and produce a teacher’s resource pack. The two continued to collaborate and for the Yellow Couch Convos Podast Series, Cisneros sat down with actors and musicians involved in the new theatre production.
For this WEAVE LabDay Cisneros, King and actors and musicians involved in the production will sit down and discuss Crystal’s Vardo and the importance of such works to reflect on racism, bullying and the value of generating teacher’s resources. Participants will see excerpts of the work, meet part of the cast, have access to the teacher’s materials and ask the team questions about how to implement this work in their settings.
Below the recording of the event:
MORE ON CRYSTAL’S VARDO :
The story is told through the eyes of Crystal, a young Gypsy girl who has been bullied at school.
Crystal is one among so many young Travellers who experience racist bullying at school and for this reason many do not continue into secondary education. Only through education and raising awareness can we address this issue and from this belief came the idea to write Crystal’s Vardo.
Through powerful and compelling theatre, Crystal’s Vardo weaves the histories and cultures of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities into one story. The aim of the play is to raise awareness of the persecution of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities through the centuries and to reflect on the ways this manifests as anti-Gypsyism today.
Crystal’s Vardo artistic vision is to:
raise awareness about the rich histories and cultures of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities,
influence and initiate change by inspiring empathy and compassion in our audiences,
affirm the cultural identity of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people by exploring and celebrating the respective cultures and identities,
to inspire dialogue and break down barriers between communities.
‘Everything about the film was excellent! Crystal’s reactions to the situations she experienced and people she met through time allowed the children to empathise with her and to understand how Gypsies, Travellers and Romani people have experienced prejudice, discrimination and persecution over the centuries.’
Archival practices and how they relate and reveal processes of knowing is relevant to current discussions within the cultural heritage sector. The idea that the archive is a static repository of history is increasingly being challenged by artists, dance companies, archivists and academics. The experiences and embodied ways of knowing can be revealed through archiving dance and the dancing body offers an entry point to reflect on existing archival structures and institutions might be expanded and reframed in order to account for the moving body and interdisciplinary modes of working and documenting. This LabDay presented 4 different dance archives and moved beyond sharing the technical and artistic aspects of the projects, also opening up some discussion relating to but not limited to the following themes:
Questions related to the access and technology and the development of tools in relation to archives that hold dance content
How do we give visibility to the works/archives outside of Europe/North America; the questions related to language (English as lingua franca)
How do we recognise the social and the personal in the archive? How much can we access the lived experience of social subjects through archival material when the subject might be untraceable or deceased and what is the role of archives in this?
Four speakers in the LabDay, Monica, Jenna, Lily, and Sarah, were all part of the Dancing Bodies in Coventry Project where they discussed some of this work.
The Summer Dancing Festival took place in Coventry from 2007 until 2016, organised by Decoda (https://www.facebook.com/Decodauk). The Summer Dancing Archive project was a durational installation and performance piece built over the duration of the final Summer Dancing festival in 2016, using materials from the previous festivals including video footage, flyers, costumes and memories. Jenna and Lily had played an integral role in the running and curation of the Summer Dancing festival and considered themselves as part of the archive.
BIOS:
Lily Hayward-Smith is a Research Assistant at C-DaRE, an editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and events curator. Lily completed a Masters in Dance Making and Performance in 2009 at Coventry University. She was co-director for Decoda until 2017. She is currently working as an artist researcher on the Shape of Sound Project supported by a Coventry University City of Culture grant https://www.theshapeofsound.art.
Mônica Fagundes Dantas is a dance artist and Associate Professor at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS – Brazil). Her work has appeared in Brazilian journals and in Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, SDHS/Cord Proceedings and Éparts (Canada), as well as in the international edited collections as Dance Fields: Staking a Claim for Dance Studies in the 21st Century (2020), Mobilités Culturelles/Cultural Mobilities (2011), Fields in Motion: Ethnographies in the World of Dance (2011). Her research interests include Contemporary Choreography, Dance and Technology, Screen Dance, Cultural Perspectives and Decolonization, Somatic Practices. She is a Visiting Researcher at C-DaRE, sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Education. She has been developing The Eva Schul Archive (www.ufrgs.br/carnedigital).
Rachael Davies is a curator and researcher living in London. She is currently a M4C PhD candidate at the Centre for Dance Research (C-Dare) at Coventry University in collaboration with Chisenhale Dance Space, London. Rachael’s research is concerned with British experimental dance and performance art of the 1970s and ‘80s with a focus on feminist discourses. Her current research explores the early history of Chisenhale Dance Space within the context of the New Dance movement (1977-88). Rachael recently curated an exhibition on the work of Cycles Dance Company (1974-1982) at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum as part of Coventry Biennial 2021. Previously, Rachael worked as public programme curator and gallery manager at Cell Project Space, London, where she curated ‘X6 Dance Space (1976-80): Liberation Notes’ (2020), the first exhibition to document the work of the X6 Collective (1976-80). She is currently assistant editor of Choreographic Practices Journal, Intellect.
Jenna Hubbard specialises in Improvisation, dance, contemporary, spoken word, process based and layering memories. Jenna is a dance artist with an interest in community practice, improvisation in performance and site-specific dance. Jenna is currently working as a Dance Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth. Jenna has a master’s degree in Community Dance from the University of Roehampton, and a first class BA (Hons) in Dance and Professional Practice from Coventry University. Jenna’s research and practice interests are working with young children and their families, creating site specific performance and improvisational practices.
Tim Casson’s The Dance WE Made in Coventry 2018 can be found here.
As a performer, Jenna has worked extensively with Spiltmilk Dance, Rosemary Lee, Tim Casson and Friends, and has collaborated with Lily Hayward-Smith on a number of projects.
Sarah Whatley is Professor of Dance and Director of the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University. Her projects and publications, variously funded by the AHRC, Trusts and the European Commission, focus on creative reuse of digital dance content, intangible cultural heritage, inclusive dance practices and somatic dance practice and pedagogy. She led the creation of the AHRC-funded Siobhan Davies RePlay digital archive (2009). She was founding Editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practice and now sits on its Board, and on the Board of several other journals. She is a REF panelist (D33), member of the AHRC peer review college (strategic reviewer), the Practice Research Advisory Group, and is an evaluator for the European Research Council.
image on left: Revelations, spectacle du Alvin Ailey city center theater. Festival d’Avignon,1977, Fernand Michaud, BnF, no copyright-other known legal restrictions.
The LabDay method is keen to look at a problem in a sector/field and come up with “solutions/offerings”. This LabDay spoke to some of the follwoing questions:
Lack of dance films in film festivals – is there a need for curating more dance-related content?
Lack of diversity in the Cultural heritage sector- Black and African Diaspora dance community is under represented… how can we challenge this reality?
Using dance films and curatorial techniques to open up spaces to explore intersectionality through dance.
Each guest brought a unique perspective to the conversation and had experience of curating and organising a screening of the latest film AILEY by director Jamila Wignot.
A bit on the AILEY film:
Alvin Ailey was a visionary artist who found salvation through dance. An immersive profile of ground-breaking and influential choreographer Alvin Ailey, founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Sensorial and archival-rich, AILEY captures the brilliant and enigmatic man who, when confronted by a world that refused to embrace him, was determined to build one that would.
“A hypnotic, immersive portrait of the visionary choreographer… a moving archive of his most momentous achievements” – Indiewire
★★★★★ “a celebration of the art of dance, those who devote their lives to it, and the power of artistic expression” – The Queer Review
Guests Include:
Sinibaldo De Rosa is a researcher and artist interested in movement, dance and ritual for people at the margins across multiple performance practices and ethnographic contexts. His PhD thesis (Drama, University of Exeter and Music, Cardiff University) explored contemporary staged adaptations of the Alevi semahs. As part of his training in Movement Notation (Laban) at the CNSMDP, he is currently reconstructing extracts of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulders (1959) and notating Yeşim Coşkun’s 4Kapı 40Makam (2011) thanks to the support of an Ivor Guest Research Grant and a BIIA’s Study Grant. Based in Bristol, he is a member of the artist-led collective Interval and of the Society for Dance Research Executive Committee, as well as a Swedish massage therapist and an elderly care assistant.
FRSA, FWL, formed Kauma Arts following her tenure in a series of leadership and management positions across the creative industries. Her career spans over 30 years in leadership roles across artforms, developing and implementing flagship programmes for change and strategic development. She is inspired to push boundaries.
She is director of Kauma Arts and who are dedicated to connect and support talent across diasporas rooted in Africa. They want to put a spotlight on creatives from The Continent in all its richness and diversity. In September 2021, Mercy received an honorary doctorate of Arts from the University of East London, in recognition of her achievements.
Michele Aaron is Reader in Film and Television at the University of Warwick. Author and editor of several books, her work now centres on ethical praxis and exploring the potential for film to affect personal, social and political change through collaborative projects. She has co-produced social justice-oriented films with the terminally ill, young activists in Coventry and students in Palestine. She is Director-Curator of Screening Rights Film Festival which aims to extend audiences for, and debate on, important international social justice-oriented films.
Girona City Council, through the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI), organize a new participatory activity in the framework of WEAVE project. The aim is to create short pieces of audiovisuals in order to explain the phenomenon of Castellers in Catalonia by contacting people from different assocations around the country and by using archival content, mainly videos and photographs.
This activity is split in 2 different sessions: the first one for recording and interviews and the second one for learning to work with archival contents.
The produced videos will be published on Europeana.
Session 1. • Date: 5th February 2022 • Time: 9:00 – 19:00 CET • Venue: CRDI – Municipal Archive. Girona • Language: Catalan
image: Marrecs de Salt, 28/10/2012. Ajuntament de Girona. CRDI (Fons El Punt Avui – Lluís Serrat Masferrer)
About 25 people are invited to participate in the production of 5 short audiovisuals about the world of Castellers. During this day we will interview members from 5 different associations in order to talk about the meaning of Castellers, the values, their history and the importance of their archives for future. These associations are the ones that have had the more connection with the city of Girona and of which we can have audiovisual content in our archive.
Agenda
9:00 Starting and setting of equipment for recording
10:00 Light test and interview
10:00 INTERVIEW 1. Capgrossos Mataró: David Minguilón Et al.
11:00 INTERVIEW 2. Sagals d’Osona: Joan Riera Claret; Júlia Font Aguilar; Bernat Camps Martínez
12:00 INTERVIEW 3. Minyons de Terrassa: Caterina Liébanas; Maria Júlia Sánchez; Nani Matas; Màrius Boada
13:30 – 15:00 – Social lunch
15:00 INTERVIEW 4. Marrecs de Salt: Ramon Grau; Jordi Anglada
16:00 INTERVIEW 5. Nens del Vendrell: Francesc Alcaraz Sànchez; Pau Marcé Arroyo
17:00 INTERVIEW 6. Sergi Font (former president of the Coordinator of Castellers and a member of Marrecs de Salt)
image: Marrecs de Salt, 25/10/1998. Ajuntament de Girona. CRDI (Fons El Punt – Manel Lladó Aliu)
This is considered a capacity building session as students from CIFOG (Training Cycles of Girona). will be involved in the production of these audiovisuals. The aim is to learn how to use archival content for creating a documentary about Castellers.
Agenda
The image collections at CRDI. Pau Saavedra
The work of an audiovisual archivist. Pau Saavedra
The management of copyright. David Iglésias
Europeana and the WEAVE project. David Iglésias
After this session, students, conducted by teachers, will learn how to edit all this content in order to create the final product. Audiovisual will be presented and published in Europeana the first week of April.
WEAVE’s 3D modelling tools, ICH and the SCHEDAR project LabDay
Date: 16th March 2022
Time: 10-11.15 UK, 11-12.15 CET
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Language: English
Computing advances and 3D digitization of human motion and systems provide challenges for the novice and software can be expensive and inaccessible to some end users. With this in mind, the SCHEDAR team and developers are committed to devising a set of guidelines and frameworks for tools that influence existing ICH motion databases.
Within WEAVE, dance is central to our work and ICH is an important component of the 3D modelling research questions. Within the SCHEDAR project, the team is equally as interested in dance and involves researchers, dance experts and non-specialist members of the society that have an interest in learning how to dance. This research method aligns with our WEAVE LabDay methodology, and the crossovers in both projects facilitate conversations that consider and include the non-expert general public to be able to engage intuitively with dance content.
This LabDay brought together the WEAVE and SCHEDAR team members and the event discussed how each project envisages making ICH content digitally available to facilitate the preservation and safeguarding of cultural heritage while also ensuring that the development of technology develops in accordance with and aligns with the needs of key stakeholders.
About SCHEDAR: Safeguarding the Cultural HEritage of Dance through Augmented Reality:
Importance of Films and Visuals within the Roma Recycle Project
Date: 18th March 2022
Time: 09.45-11.00 UK, 10.45-12.00 CET
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Language: English
Roma families from across the UK were involved in the Roma: Recycle Reuse Reimagine project, funded by Seasons for Change. March 18th is International Recycling Day and the WEAVE team screened the Roma Recycle film, which captures the R:RRR project and includes families involved. The film illustrates the co-creative process of working online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Capacity Building LabDay outlined the project, describe the process of generating inclusive, multilingual materials for schools and families to use on the theme of recycling. Resources and tips were shared followed by a Q&A session. At the event Roma women involved in the making of the book were welcomed: Claudia Tranca from the Roma Project (Coventry), Maria Polodeanu from Reel Master Productions, Martine Smith Equity Lead from Maindee Primary School (Wales).
Roma: Recycle Reuse Reimagine: Co-Production with artists, Roma women and families
Date: 10th February 2022
Time: 10-11.30 UK – 11.00-12.30 CET
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Language: English
Co-producing a children’s book and using art to explore climate justice with vulnerable communities. This book was part of the Season’s for Change Roma: Recycle, Reuse, Reimagine project. Artist and researcher Rosa Cisneros was commissioned to co-create the book and lead on the project. Thanks to several individuals and organisations the book was devised and designed with the support of many grassroots Roma families located in a number of locations throughout the UK.
This Capacity Building LabDay framed the book and explored the importance of co-creation. Yassmin S., a Roma woman who contributed to the project and Maria Polodeanu from Reel Master Productions was present to share their experiences and advice on working collaboratively on highly charged topics like social and environmental justice. We also had Alexandra Bahor and Marcela Iordan from Granby Toxteth Development Trust (Liverpool) to explain how they worked with their local families.
Themes explored:
What is co-creation?
How can academics, artists and grassroots community members work together in an egalitarian fashion? Why is this important? What impact does this mode of working have on the ground level?
What lessons did the team learn?
How did a children’s book engage Roma families to discuss social justice?
Venue: Online via Zoom (link sent upon Registration)
Language: English
image: Aja Zupanec, Dance Programme, Public Fund for Cultural Activities, CC BY-ND JSKD Dance Department 2012 Aja Zupanec
Archives, dance, disability and ablebodiedness raises several questions that need to be more explored in terms of narratives, language and equality. With this in mind, the COVUNI team has curated a Capacity-Building LabDay where we bring together researchers, artists, archivists and practitioners to reflect on the intersections and challenges of archives, dance and disability,
Questions being considered include:
How can we develop a vocabulary to talk about disability dance and archives?
How can we use that vocabulary as a tool to make disability dance visible in the archive in a way that is not focussed on ablebodiedness?
What can archives do to start to explore these timely questions?
What might artists need to consider when thinking about offering work to archives?
Who has the power to decide which archives/traces/documents of (disability) dance will be preserved for the future in a professional, sustainable way?
Staf Vos works for CEMPER, Centre for Music and Performing Arts Heritage (Flanders, Belgium) and likes exploring the many needs and challenges that come up when dealing with ‘heritage’, ‘archives’ and ‘historical research’, both in specific practices and on a policy level. He studied Cultural History (KU Leuven & University of York) and published monographs on music and ideology in early twentieth-century Flanders (2005) and on Belgian dance history 1890-1940 (PhD 2009; publ. 2012). Staf has been Guest Lecturer in Dance History at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp BA Dance programme (2014-2020). He identifies as having a disability, plays the French horn and has some experience as an amateur dancer.
Iris Bouche works as an artist within the medium of choreography. As a choreographer, teacher, and performer, she investigates the position of the non-normative dancing body within the contemporary dance landscape. She graduated in 1993 from the Royal Institute in Antwerp. She continued her studies at the Alvin Ailey Dance Center in N.Y.C. and at the Rudra Dance Theater School in Lausanne under the direction of Maurice Béjart. From 1995 to 2001 she was part of the dance company Rosas under the direction of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Since then she has worked as a freelance choreographer, dancer and movement coach on various co-productions for dance and theater. She has worked with Needcompany by Jan Lauwers, Skagen, Olympique Dramatique, De Roovers, Laïka, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, among others. From 2011 to 2016 she was artistic director of the dance department of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp. In 2020 she obtained a Master in Cultural Studies at KU Leuven. Currently, she is also working as an artistic collaborator in HETGEVOLG directed by Stefan Perceval. In addition to creating and writing, her teaching includes research in disability art studies and dance studies through workshops with students at universities and art schools. She has invested in collective research projects such as the LABO Inclusive Dance Platform, an educational project for inclusive dance practices.
Jonas Rutgeerts is a dance researcher and dramaturge based in Belgium. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Institute of Philosophy (KU Leuven) in 2015 and is currently affiliated as a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Arts (KU Leuven). His research explores the importance of dance in the shaping of (sub)cultural practices and its potential to rethink traditional relations between, time and space. He is the author of Re-act: Over re-enactment in de hedendaagse dans (Tectum Verlag, 2015) and Unbecoming rhythms: Performing Temporality in Contemporary European Dance (Intellect books, 2021). As a dramaturge, he worked with Needcomapny, Ivana Müller, David Weber-Krebs and Arkadi Zaides, among others.
Kate Marsh is a disabled dance artist with over 20 years of experience in performing, teaching and making. Her recently completed PhD focusses on leadership in the context of dance and disability. She is currently a research fellow at C-DaRE (Coventry University Centre for Dance Research). Kate is also co-producer of the Change Maker programme at the UK’s arts organisation “Metal Culture”. Change Maker is a programme funded by Arts Council England, with the aim of increasing the diversity of senior leadership in art and culture by helping to develop a cohort of leaders who are Black, minority ethnic and/or disabled by means of a targeted senior leadership training and development programme.
Image: Screengrab from the CultureMoves Film created for the EDC Baroque Dance Module, courtesy of EDC / C-DARE Coventry University
COVUNI (Centre for Dance Research, C-DaRE) and the Early Dance Circle (EDC) collaborated to organise an Early Dance LabDay to present about the work the charity is doing across the UK, get a sense of the various periods they cover, gain insight into their online activities and also learn more about the content they are providing for the WEAVE project. The LabDay also revisited the EDC Baroque Dance MOOC developed under the CEF CultureMoves project.
For the Early Dance Module where a collaboration with the Early Dance Circle and Chalemie took place, the module provided an introduction to Baroque dance focused on its more formal couple dances, rather than its professional, stage and comedic (more virtuosic) sides, or its rich and various heritage of country dances involving sets of dancers.
The LabDay also explored how the EDC and the content provided to Europeana is opening up a conversation about the importance of historical dance and music because of its relevance for engagement in historic buildings and other cultural heritage sites. The LabDay offered participants the opportunity to learn more about historical dance and join a conversation on the ways in which archival material can be reimagined in a modern context.
COVUNI, and in particular the Centre For Dance Research (C-DaRE), has long standing collaborations with dance archives, dance associations and artists and will facilitate the aggregation of high-quality curated collections from specific dance communities. Among those collections is the Early Dance Circle (EDC), an umbrella organisation based in the UK whose main aim is to promote the enjoyment, performance and study of historical dance in the UK and beyond, from the medieval period up to the end of the 20th century.
Formed in 1984 and including professional and amateur dance groups, artists and researchers, the EDC aims to make historical dance heritage accessible and has curated and organised many events over the last 35 years. The EDC’s ethos is that a knowledge of earlier dance forms helps enrich the cultural life of the UK and Europe by accessing a heritage of international importance that belongs to us all, but which has, until recently, been largely forgotten.
In conjunction with the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University, the EDC will broker new connections with the historical and early dance community in the UK and beyond in order to safeguard and promote this marginalized dance heritage. The EDC is keen to aggregate to Europeana a curated selection of their content (historical dance videos), shedding new light on historical dance forms that have often been missing from archives. This is especially pertinent given dance’s traditional ontology as intangible cultural heritage, especially in (dance) performance’s oft-cited ephemerality (Phelan 1993) and in how dance practice and performance might resist and/or enter the archive (cf. Taylor 2003 ; Schneider 2001, 2011; Lepecki 2010, Brandstetter 2015 [1995], 2016).
In particular, the work in WEAVE aggregating EDC content to Europeana will build on the existing relationship that COVUNI formed with the EDC during the CEF CultureMoves project. For CultureMoves, as part of the ‘Creating a Digital Heritage Community’ MOOC (massive open online course) developed in collaboration with the Kaleidoscope project, EDC collaborated on a historical dance module examining the relationship between early and baroque dance in heritage settings and digital storytelling (using the CultureMoves digital toolkit, and especially the MotionNotes digital annotation tool which will be extended in WEAVE). The partnership between C-DaRE and EDC in WEAVE will build on this exploration of the connections between tangible and intangible cultural heritage first explored in CultureMoves, considering relationships between dance as ICH, historical landmark settings as TCH, and how digital tools can enable deeper interconnections between these forms of ICH and TCH.
