Dance-led learning and inclusion: arts-based methods and the emergence of new categories about diversity

The goal of this chapter is to illustrate how dance-led learning approaches, within the broader categories of arts-based methods, contribute to understanding how individuals develop and question meanings about inclusion and marginalization categories, in the Italian context. To do so, the chapter relies on how, in the Italian setting, dance-led learning methodologies and the discussion around diversity intertwine, so that communities can express their ways of conceiving the boundaries of the concept of inclusion and diversity. Especially, we focus on the analysis of the experiences of dance workshops, led by three dance choreographers, for the community of an Italian contemporary dance festival, on the topics of decolonization and intergenerational relationships. Based on the analysis of the dynamics occurring within these workshops, we argue that dance, as an embodied approach to knowledge, shape different ways to consider inclusion, in the facets of decolonization and inter-generational issues, with respect to the extant mainstream diversity management discourse and practices in Italy. Especially, while the mainstream discourse in Italy about decolonization revolves around multi-cultural issues and the one about inter-generationality around the different ways of generations to conceive work and family care, we illustrate that, through dance, groups build new and broader categories of meaning related to the need to identify oppressing subjects (identified in gender and affective identities) and to welcome the other (by privileging embodied experiences).