Methods of disseminating dance in European museums

A dance museum is a rare reality in Europe. As a result of a wide-range research, the author has found ten museums with different levels of dance dissemination presenting interesting approaches in means of communicating the tacit factor of dance knowledge. She has discovered that visitors engage differently in such communication and a variation in technical equipment gives the transmission of knowledge new expressions. Personal descriptions and pictures from the field will illustrate these means. Moreover, interviews with museum staffs have provided various insights into ideologies and methods. This paper attempts to apply the principles of “New Museology” and Article 18 of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) to dance presentation techniques in the museums discussed. The red thread in this multi-sited fieldwork amongst different types of museums and dance genres in Europe will be highlighted. Findings and visits prove that there still is a clear division between the traditional museums and new museums in regards to the level of visitors’ interaction. In relation to dance and ICH this is a field in its infancy and must be further debated and developed. Interesting points of view come from Museum International articles and New Museology theories and will be the tools of evaluation of what the fieldwork materials present