Dance in School International Project Presentation Held at Rustavi Theater
The presentation of the international ‘Dance in School’ project was held in the Rustavi Municipal Theater on July 25, within the frames of the Germany-Georgia Year. The project was introduced by Christopher Fronzek, Cultural Attache of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Sascha Fabri, Deputy Director of the Goethe Institute, Tbilisi. The presentation was attended by the heads of the project, An Boekman, Elia Patrizi, and Liza Regehr- members of the well-known Berlin Sasha Waltz’s Contemporary Dance Company- and the TanzZeit project.
As a part of the presentation, a 20 minute contemporary dance performance by Patrizi, Boekman and Reger was shown, based on the four elements of fire, water, air and earth. School pupils and teachers from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia participated.
Dance in School is an innovative project of Goethe Institute with students from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia involved. The project, running for the first time this year, entails German language learning in German schools through a new method and an innovative, interdisciplinary approach, which passes the traditional method of German language learning and adds dance and movement elements. Through this new method, it is believed that interdisciplinary methodological competences are being strengthened, believed to be an effective way to improve the quality of the language learning process.
The project consists of three stages. The first stage was an international summer camp organized at the international scout camp in the town of Rustavi (Balanchivadze Str. 19) from July 16 to July 26, gathering 32 students from eight schools and 16 teachers from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. The choreographers from TanzZeit worked with this group, explaining how movement and dance, music and rhythm structures our everyday life, making it diverse and enriched; how the communication can be established through dance and movement while learning German as a foreign language. With this new method, the Georgian teachers learn how to make joint projects, how to add the elements of dance and movement, to their German language teaching methods.
The second stage consists of realizing the project ideas and mastering the interdisciplinary methodological competences after returning from the international summer camp. The school teams will have the chance to make a small performance and dance projects in their schools. This way, the students will get back to the themes learned through the dance and movement sessions and to extend these themes further in their German language classes.
The third part of the project consists of a workshop and presentation to be held in Tbilisi, in which Gori, Zugdidi and Kutaisi German schools are to participate from Georgia, presenting the interdisciplinary projects which link contemporary dance and German language learning. Two works will be selected by the TanzZeit Company and the winners will be invited to the workshop planned for November in Germany. These performances will also be shown in Tbilisi.
“This project is special because it unites representatives of four countries, who had no communication language with each other. With this project we worked through body language and dance. This approach is used to open individuals towards learning. We’ve worked at the international, multicultural camp, giving assignments to children like: Make your arms speak to each other, or quarrel with each other. Teachers are as actively involved in the project as the students are. We’re all together in it,” An Boekman, head of the Dance in School project said.
“This project was new for me…it is an exceptional method, integrating choreographic elements and movements into German language teaching classes, helping learners to understand various notions more easily,” said Megi Gvasalia, Teacher at Goethe Institute. “The foreign language learning process must not be solely oriented on cognitive skills: it must include psycho-motoral aspects- body and emotion have to be working in combination with one another. This dance is part of an alternative method which is called Total Physical Response. A student creates a world or an entire phrase with body language. The first word given by the project organizers at the camp for the children to perform was ‘short circuit’. As the students in the camp were beginners in German, they explained the word through movement. It helped them not only to remember the word, but I saw that they were repeating it after the lesson, as well as repeating the movement itself. Thanks to this method, there is no stress involved in learning the German language and it’s an important nuance. Dance and movement is the most important element here, and German language is a possibility, a tool towards this movement. The study process is much more creative, the motivation is higher and it’s much better than learning words by heart in a locked classroom. Consequently, we’re getting good academic results”.
“This is an innovative project and is being realized for the first time involving students and teachers from schools of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia,” said Sascha Fabri, Deputy Director of the Goethe Institute, Tbilisi. “The project theme is a combination of four elements; Fire, Water, Earth and Air, performing them and combining them with the German language. Rustavi Theater is the perfect place to introduce and perform this dance”.
A documentary on the Goethe Institute international experimental project Dance in School is to be made, with a screening to be held when the project ends.
The Dance in School project is realized under the German-Georgian Year. The Goethe Institute Tbilisi is actively collaborating with the TanzZeit company, established under the patronage of Sasha Waltz back in 2005, introducing a method of language teaching through movement and dance.
As a result of a successful cooperation between the Goethe Institute Tbilisi and Sasha Waltz, another project is planned for October 20-21, whereby, during the Mikheil Tumanishvili International Arts Festival Gift, Waltz’s show performance: ‘Continu’ will be held at the Tbilisi Opera House.
Nino Gugunishvili