Dance, young people and change

Normal, Weekender
Source:

The National, Friday July 27th, 2012

By NAOMI FAIK-SIMET
PAPUA New Guinea recently participated at the 2012 Global Dance Summit held in Taipei, Tai¬wan from 14 to 20 July.
The summit hosted by Dance and the Child In¬ternational in collaboration with World Dance Al¬liance was held at the Taipei National University of the Arts.
The summit’s theme “Dance, Young People and Change” was the first of its kind that was aimed at developing young people’s interest through dance.
The event brought together young people, their parents, educators and dance scholars from across the world to reflect on key issues and to point to fu¬ture directions for dance in young people’s lives. It was attended by approximately 1000 people, main¬ly young people.
“This is the first time that an international dance summit for young people and their teachers has been held in Asia. It’s the result of a unique inter¬national collaboration between dance and the Child International (daCi) and the World Dance Alliance (WDA)” said Jeff Meiners, Australian member of the International Executive Organising Committee from the University of South Australia.
Ausdance National Director Julie Dyson said: “This is a unique opportunity for Papua New Guin¬ea to meet and work together with international colleagues and participate in the Global Dance Summit at the acclaimed School of Dance of Taipei National University of the Arts.”
Young people from far-ranging countries partici¬pated in opening and closing events, taster classes offering different ‘dance flavours’ from around the world, shared their own performances, and worked together in creative workshops and discussions about the importance of dance in their lives.
Teachers attended master classes as well as pres¬entations by international keynote speakers and shared in over 200 presentations. They exchanged ideas about approaches to dance learning, teaching and curriculum for young people.
Representing PNG, I presented a project dia¬logue titled “Exploring Dance as Knowledge and as a Way of Knowing: Issues from the 2010 Dance Symposium”.
The project dialogue discussed presentations that were made at the first National Dance Symposium held at the University of Goroka in 2010 which resulted in the book titled “A Focus on Dance in Papua New Guinea: Papers from the 2010 Interna¬tional Dance Day Symposium, Held at the Univer¬sity of Goroka” published by IPNGS and launched early this year. The presentation stimulated a lot of discussion among participants who were keen to know more about PNG’s traditional and contempo¬rary dance forms.
PNG in comparison to some countries in the world is very fortunate to have a living, vibrant cul¬ture which is very much alive. Dance contributes to that diversity and forms the basis of our cultural identity – something all of us should be proud of.
Such international forums provide the occasion for one to reflect upon the essence of culture and a sense of belong¬ing. And dance continues to be a vehicle for the transmission and maintenance of traditional knowl¬edge which needs to be under¬stood by young people who will pass on this information to their children.
The challenge for PNG today is to identify ways in which our young people can make mean¬ing out of what they perform and at the same time value their dances. Dance education is vital in ensuring that our young peo¬ple today are properly equipped to take dance to the next level but at the same time maintainintegrity which reflects our diverse cultural heritage.
The writer is a dance research¬er with the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.
A dance performances during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Global Dance Summit in Taipei.
Eharo mask dancer in Toare village during the 2005 Toare mini-mask festival