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Preserving Europe’s dance traditions through international research project
Dr Simon Ellis
Tuesday 01 April 2025
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Coventry University researchers have joined a major multinational initiative aiming to map and preserve Europe’s dance heritage.
As arts funding declines, live performances become less frequent and archives remain scattered across institutions, preserving the legacy of dance is becoming increasingly challenging.
With funding from Horizon Europe, the DanceMap project is bringing together 16 universities and cultural organisations from across Europe to map dance’s embodied heritage, ensuring that dance remains a key part of Europe’s cultural identity.
Led by Bureau Ritter in Germany, DanceMap has identified several stages to transform how European dance heritage is preserved, accessed and valued, including compiling a directory of dance archives and creating an online platform to share them with the world.
Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) will be collecting and analysing data from various dance archives and initiatives; creating a knowledge graph that will identify best practices; determining gaps in existing collections and providing insights into the risks facing specific dance forms.
C-DaRE will also share project findings through publications, engaging with cultural organisations, ensuring they are integrated into, and inform, the wider European dance sector.
A key goal is to create a network of supporters that will help maintain the DanceMap platform long after the project ends, ensuring the long-term survival of European dance heritage so it remains accessible for future generations.
DanceMap represents an unparalleled opportunity to understand dance’s place in European heritage. The project will help remind us of just how vital it is to remember and share intangible cultural practices. The project will help us remember, sustain and value dance’s role and legacy in what it means to be human.
Dr Simon Ellis, Project Lead for C-DaRE
In these uncertain times, when budgets for the arts are shrinking, it is more important than ever to demonstrate the value of embodied knowledge and ephemeral artistic practices such as dance. DanceMap will do exactly that, by shining a light on Europe’s rich dance heritage and highlighting the crucial role that dancers, artists and researchers play in keeping it alive.
Madeline Ritter, Director of Bureau Ritter and DanceMap Project Lead
