Dancing climate on a high mountain

Abstract

ABSTRACTNamasia District, located in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan, is home to many of the island’s indigenous Bunun people. This place was one of the most damaged areas from typhoon Morakot in 2009. In the aftermath of the Morakot disaster, many of the children were traumatized physically and psychologically. I set out to design dance classes for them with Playdancing, a teaching method that combines dance and games for learning and healing to bring joy back to the children. My project ‘Playdancing in the High Mountains’ took place in Namasia District starting in 2015 with the specified teaching goals of team work, self-expression, and self-awareness, directly reflected from the participating children. This article discusses how the children discovered new aspects of their personalities, anxieties and unspoken habitus during their exercises of dance and play. A Bourdieuian approach is applied to identify underlying structures and practices that have implicit forces to generate a cultural habitus of the participating children. In addition, the discussions focus on how Playdancing classes accomplish goals for sustainable development for the participants’ health, education and their resilience to climate change.