Dance as a cultural meeting point is a project that Dance in Schools, Norway, executed in three schools in Oslo during the spring of 2013, with funds from The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. The funding was to be given to projects that would, amongst other things, help schools reach curriculum objectives, increase the use of varied working methods, increase the pupils’ understanding of different cultural expressions and experience art. The project included a one-day workshop, a survey and reports from two observers. One class in three different schools got an introduction to Norwegian folk dance, hip hop, Bollywood and creative dance, and created and performed dances to each other in small groups. Dance in Schools’ aim was to gather information about the pupils’ knowledge of and experience with dance, contribute to increasing the pupils’ and teachers’ understanding of dance and how dance can stimulate learning, and social competence. The cultural meeting intended to be the meeting of dance forms and pupils from different cultures. The most important cultural meeting, however, turned out to be between the pedagogues’ dance culture and the pupils’ school culture.
