April 29, International Dance Day

Next month it's Dance Day! Here's the announcement from the International Dance Council (part of UNSECO, with one of the most outdated websites still functioning: www.cid-unseco.org.)

"The United Nations proclaimed 2010 as International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures and designated UNESCO as lead agency in this celebration, having regard to its experience of more than 60 years in advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples.

Irina Bokova, the new Director-General of UNESCO, has proposed a universal vision, which she has called the “new humanism”; a vision open to the entire human community, providing a humanist response to globalization and crisis, aiming at the safeguarding of social cohesion and the preservation of peace.

Dance, being a central part of every culture, constitutes the ideal means for bringing together people from different countries. Festivals promote in the most lively manner reciprocal knowledge and respect of diversity; there are hundreds of millions attending international dance festivals each year. Teachers offering classes in foreign countries provide immediate bridges of understanding ingrained into the bodies of dancers; there are tens of thousands of dance teachers crossing national borders yearly. Congresses and open conferences provide opportunities to showcase one's work to an audience of peers; there are dozens of international meetings of dance researchers, historians and critics in any given year.

Even outside festivals, classes or conferences, simply watching on television a dance from a foreign country offers the most striking, appealing and convincing image of another ethnic group.

For vividly illustrating cultural diversity, for embodying rapprochement, there is no better means than dance."


Prof. Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID
UNESCO, Paris

This is similar to Dance/USA's conference theme this year "Dancing Across Borders." I guess it's the hot topic right now? So is anyone doing anything international or crossing cultural boundaries they'd like to share? CORE's going to Guatemala in May and the ABUNDANCE festival in Sweden in June. Or is anyone working with folks here who are from other countries? Good Moves is teaching dance to some refugee girls from an international school in Decatur.

And how are you going to celebrate Dance Day in general? What should DanceATL do??