El Colegio del Cuerpo (eCdC) has been recognized locally and internationally, as a leading educational innovation initiative. Through ten years practice it has developed a philosophy and a methodology that uses contemporary dance grammar and techniques, among other pedagogical tools, to convey artistic, social and human values to youngsters, in a country devastated by multiple forms of violence, social and political degradation.
As a non-for-profit organization, eCdC contains in its name, the deep nature of its goals: Corporación Colegio del Cuerpo: which means three - times - body. They understand the individual body and self as a metaphor of the collective/social/planetarian body. As they sculpt and train - on a daily basis - their individual/artistic dancer’s body they are conveying to their students the conscience that they are simultaneously sculpting society: self respect, respect for others (not just tolerance), and quest for excellence, work group capacity, the sacredness of life, and the sense of co-responsibility for the health of our body/society/planet.
They have developed two major lines of action: Education FOR Dance and Education WITH Dance. The first is related to talent detection and professional training and development as interpreters/performers, choreographers/creators, pedagogues/multipliers. The second has to do with non for artists education: integral body conscience (sexual education, drug abuse prevention, intra family violence and other types of violence issues, environmental education, nutrition and medical/health aspects, etc).
All the students of eCdC come from the most deprived areas of Cartagena (1 million inhabitants: 70% living below poverty line!). In the education-for-dance program there is a professional company of 17 kids who started their formation 10 years ago. 13 of them will graduate next year as the first accredited dance teachers in Colombia, thanks to an agreement with the country`s oldest university: Antioquia University . There is another group of 22 students who started the Superior Level studies in 2008, after 5 years of formation at eCdC. A total of 100 kids between the ages of 11 – 14 also receive formation, as part of the programs Seeds of Talent and Artistic Complementary High School.
eCdC just received from the Major of Cartagena a beautiful 4 hectares piece of land 20 kms, away from the city where to build a definitive site. The construction is a big, expensive, long term challenge: 4 Dance studios, a theatre, a documentation center (library, videotheque, etc), boarding facilities for emergency situation kids and visitors (artists in residency, for example): a place for silence, concentration, dignity, respect for Nature, social inclusion (we expect to start working soon with kids coming from all social/economical backgrounds). eCdC was not conceived to be a ghetto project. Talent and commitment will be the filters regardless of their origin in a very racist, classistic, macho society. The dance studio can be a neutral/recognition/reconciliation space for kids and people of all ages who want to discover their bodies as a territory for peace, dignity, and plenitude. A new notion of wealth and health: the peace and silence of the organs, as defined by a French philosopher…
Photographies by: Carlos Lema, Mauricio Moreno, Walder Gómez and Christian Enger
