CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON DANCE EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN MEDITERRANEAN FROM 2010 TO 2020

Abstract

This paper critically examines the shifts, developments and changes in dance education across the region of the Southern Mediterranean (encompassing the locations of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Occupied Palestine, Lebanon and Syria). Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Southern Mediterranean documenting and analysing the narratives of over 50 dance educators, key issues are distilled and investigated in relation to the social, political and economic fabric of the region. Major points of discussion that are focused on include: the internationalization of dance teaching and learning in the region; working within contexts of conflict, occupation, trauma and restrictive political and religious ideologies; and creating new pedagogies, practices and processes for dance education that are relevant to the time and place that educators find themselves within. Through an examination of the past decade there is the potential to explore avenues and directions for the future of dance education in the region.