Dance of the Cultures for Sustainable Environment — Turkey

Date: 24 September – 2 October 2012

Venue: Olympos, Antalya, Turkey

Pax: Lucia Patoprstá, Tomáš Mackovík, Zuzana Andrlová, Zdeněk Komenda, Vlastimil Vodička, Daniela Chmelová (group leader)

Programme and action: Youth in Action programme, action 1.1. youth exchange

Project report:

By this letter, I would like to thank to European Youth Centre in Breclav (mainly to Jana Parolkova) for the opportunity to attend the event ‘Dance of the Cultures for Sustainable Environment’ which I attended at the end of September in Adrasan, Turkey.

It was my first event organized by European Youth Centre and I have to say it was a really great adventure! I have never been to Turkey and thus, I had been really excited before the departure. The Turkish organizers chose a great place for the event (Hostel Jungle Bells). We all were really surprised
how warm the sea and weather was. Apart from working on the tasks, we could swim and enjoy a bit of the sun every day! I wanted to attend the event mainly because of its topic – at the end, it was really interesting and the tasks were smart and enjoyable.

All the organizers were very nice. They tried to give us every day as great feeling from being in Turkey as possible. At the end, I was a member of the ‘Costume group’ – we were creating and assembling the costumes for the final dance of the ‘Dancing group’. And that dance, danced on the local beach,
got a true attention by not only local inhabitants but also tourists. ..

I enjoyed the week – full of nice people, great weather, interesting tasks and friendly atmosphere. Thank you for it!

Zdeněk Komenda

_______________________________________________________

Together with Zuzka, Lucia, Zdeněk, Vlastík and Tomáš we participated in this very

interesting project in Turkey which was basically focused on environmental aspects and

intercultural learning in connection with dancing. There were 5 countries involved in this

project: Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Czech republic. The goal of the project was to

create a choreography of a dance which would highlight the importance of the environmental

protection in the local area. Because Antalya became a well-known turistic destination and

thus there is a problem with increasing polution in the area.

The first part of the project was focused mostly on theory. We were using many non-formal

learning methods: we discussed global environmental problems, we were creating group

presentations, we played many games focused on this topic. The programme was interesting,

enriching and very well organized. Esra, the Turkish organizator of the project, did a great

job- she always proposed an activity, explained what we have to do and then we (the

participants) were searching for the information and created the presentation on the desirable

topic. In my opinion very good way of organizing: we had enough space to bring some new

ideas, but she gave us a frame of work and schedule.

Finally, the last three days were devoted to creation of costumes and dance choreography. We

were divided into two groups for this reason. Me and Lucia were in a dance group and the rest

of Czechs was supposed to create costumes. We chose some good music and in my opinion

we created great choreography with very strong message in it which we presented the last day

next to the beach in Adrasan.

Unfortunately the day before planned preformance on the beach many of us got some

agressive intestinal infection, I vomited and at the same time had a diarrhea during the whole

night. For this reason I was not able to participace in the final performance and I just spent the

day in my bed. So this issue made the end of our project little bit difficult and not pleasant.

But despite the intestinal sickness I can summarize that the project was very succesful and

enriching for all the participants, we learned many things not only regarding the environment

and its protection but we discovered also many things about Turkey and muslim culture in

general, we had a chance to taste different national dishes and learn something about history

and culture of all the participating countries, we practised our presentational skills and in our

leasure time we enjoyed beautiful local nature and the sea.

There is nothing more to say than thank you for the organisation of this project!

Together with Zuzka, Lucia, Zdeněk, Vlastík and Tomáš we participated in this very interesting project in Turkey which was basically focused on environmental aspects and intercultural learning in connection with dancing. There were 5 countries involved in this project: Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and the Czech Republic. The goal of the project was to create a choreography of a dance which would highlight the importance of the environmental protection in the local area. Because Antalya became a well-known turistic destination and thus there is a problem with increasing polution in the area.

The first part of the project was focused mostly on theory. We were using many non-formal learning methods: we discussed global environmental problems, we were creating group presentations, we played many games focused on this topic. The programme was interesting, enriching and very well organized. Esra, the Turkish organizator of the project, did a great job – she always proposed an activity, explained what we have to do and then we (the participants) were searching for the information and created the presentation on the desirable topic. In my opinion very good way of organizing: we had enough space to bring some new ideas, but she gave us a frame of work and schedule.

Finally, the last three days were devoted to creation of costumes and dance choreography. We were divided into two groups for this reason. Me and Lucia were in a dance group and the rest of Czechs was supposed to create costumes. We chose some good music and in my opinion we created great choreography with very strong message in it which we presented the last day next to the beach in Adrasan. Unfortunately the day before planned preformance on the beach many of us got some agressive intestinal infection, I vomitted and at the same time had a diarrhea during the whole night. For this reason I was not able to participace in the final performance and I just spent the day in my bed. So this issue made the end of our project little bit difficult and not pleasant. But despite the intestinal sickness I can summarize that the project was very succesful and enriching for all the participants, we learned many things not only regarding the environment and its protection but we discovered also many things about Turkey and muslim culture in general, we had a chance to taste different national dishes and learn something about history and culture of all the participating countries, we practised our presentational skills and in our leasure time we enjoyed beautiful local nature and the sea.

There is nothing more to say than thank you for the organisation of this project!

Daniela Chmelová