The HUMAN dance project and its process

This year, the 10th grade of the Rudolf Steiner School Zürcher Oberland participated in the integrative HUMAN dance project together with the people of the Hof Wagenburg. People with and without special needs live at the Hof Wagenburg. Students from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences for Special Needs Education also danced. In total, we were 31 participants.

The «de-loopers» received the assignment explicitly for the evening of the founding of the 12th section of the leadership team of the former Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development.

And we were allowed to do it!

We had an intensive week of rehearsals at school. The two choreographers, Amaya and Wilfried, were very open, warm-hearted and patient with us. It was immediately clear that this was not the first time they had done a project like this.

Every morning, we had a warm-up and then we continued with the choreography. For the first two days, we rehearsed with the 10th grade and the female students. This was because it was important that we were introduced to the choreography before the people from Hof Wagenburg joined us for the next few days.

The first two days were hard; lots of new things, lots of memorising of movement sequences, getting to know your own body in a completely different way again, and yet there was also a sense of joy and a certain ambition to be able to dance.

When the people from Hof Wagenburg joined the rehearsals on the third day, the mood lightened. The joy, love and interest they radiated in their interactions with the others had an immediate effect on the whole group. We helped each other, practised together and laughed again and again. All in all, it was a mood of tiredness, excessive demands and, at the same time, a sense of lightness and joy.

We were amazed at how much we were able to achieve in just one week. We performed the play once at the Rudolf Steiner School in Wetzikon and the next day on the Goetheanum stage in Dornach, as part of the evening celebrating the founding of the Section for Inclusive Social Development. Both performances were a great success and the project an unforgettable experience!

Thank you very much!

By Anna-Giulia Risso, teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in Wetzikon

Photos: Matthias Spalinger