IT`S ABOUT PEOPLE 2024: IN SERVICE OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DIGNITYPROCEEDINGS BOOK WITH PEER REVIEW – DANCE BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION

This year, at the 12th international conference It’s About People, the Dance Academy of Alma Mater Europaea organized its dance section for the fifth time. The title of the section was Dance Between Tradition and Innovation. We had two sessions of the dance section and thus two moderators—myself and my colleague, Assistant Professor Rosana Hribar, Head of the Department of Contemporary Dance at our academy.

In the first part of the dance section, we explored dance and digital technology, a topic we had already addressed at previous conferences in 2021 and 2022. We expanded our investigation to include AI as well as dance and dance education between tradition and innovation. In the second part, we discussed contemporary dance and flamenco, thereby exploring the relationship between dance as an art form and culture.

The session opened with our distinguished guest and keynote speaker Dr. Alice Siu, Senior Researcher at Stanford University and Associate Director of the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab. Together with Ms. Tatjana Christelbauer, founder and director of the Agency for Cultural Diplomacy in Vienna, she presented the topic Coppélia’s Book: Deliberation, Truth, Trust & Hope. In her presentation, she aimed to explore the complex relationship between tradition and innovation in the field of dance art, supported by the transformative capabilities of AI tools, with a focus on ethical considerations.

Dr. Simona Noja-Nebyla followed with a presentation titled Classical Ballet as a System of Systems, which can also be found in this proceedings volume. Drawing on her extensive experience as a ballerina, educator, ballet school director, and researcher, she delved into the intricate interplay between tradition and innovation in ballet education in the context of the 21st century, emphasizing the need to redefine the purpose of ballet education.

The last two speakers of the first part were our current Master’s student Ana Germ, who presented her contribution titled Challenges of Ballet Education in the 21st Century, published in this volume, and our former student, M.A. Jerneja Omahen Razpotnik, who presented her paper Important Educational Aspects in Teaching and Learning Dance Art. Her contribution aimed to highlight the role of dance in education—how and why it is positioned in the system as we witness it today, and what the role of dance art is in the general education of children and youth.

In the second part of the dance section, several papers on contemporary dance and flamenco were presented. The first presentation was given by our former BA student Johanna Rebecca Greiner, titled Forming an Individual Path with Traces of Contemporary Dance, which is included in this volume, as is the presentation by the second speaker, Juan Carlos Lérida, a PhD candidate at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, titled Flamenco Dance Improvisation: An Expanded Perspective. Two more speakers presented their work: Ana Pandur, lecturer at the Alma Mater Europaea Dance Academy, introduced The Evolution of the Universal Body of Flamenco, and María de los Ángeles Cenizo Salvago, a dance educator, presented her paper titled Contemporaneity in Flamenco Dance.

As the editor of this edition, I selected five contributions to be published in this year’s conference proceedings.

Prof. Dr. Svebor Sečak, Dean of the Dance Academy, Alma Mater Europaea