Pushing boundaries and borders

Abstract

Drawing on personal reflections and detailed case studies this paper aims to explore the challenges, rewards and discoveries of establishing and teaching a contemporary dance workshop program, ‘Introduction to contemporary dance practices’ (ICDP), over a ten month period at the Al-Balad Theatre in Amman, Jordan. An inclusive, holistic and somatically based curriculum was devised as the basis for the workshop program with each two week workshop intensive focusing on a different aspect of contemporary dance practice while continuing to develop and integrate what was experienced in previous workshops. The focus of the program was primarily to develop a safe and open working environment, where new ideas could be introduced and adapted to the individual participants own thoughts, experiences and perspectives. It was intended that this workshop series could help to contribute to developing a platform for contemporary dance education in Jordan to further evolve from, primarily through providing the participants with the opportunity to be exposed to such practices, with tentative plans made to establish the program as a long term sustainable activity. Within this paper the value of such a dance program being offered will be discussed along with the challenges of establishing, teaching and maintaining the program. The possibilities for future directions dance may be developed and fostered in a Jordanian context through such workshop programs will also be explored.