Quality assurance

From the very beginning, the quality assurance of dance education programmes has been a core issue for Aktion Tanz. Based on the expertise of its members from the fields of dance art and dance education as well as science and education and training, the association developed criteria-based principles for educational work in schools and other institutions with children and young people in its early years. These include the Quality Framework (currently only available in German) and the guidelines based on it. Both are still available to all those involved in dance education.

Due to new focal points in terms of content, a further publication has subsequently been produced:
Dance Art with Refugees (2016/2017; currently only available in German); list of recommendations for dance work with refugees.

Quality Framework 2026

The reorganisation of the association’s content and, as a result, the change of name to Aktion Tanz has increasingly focused attention on the need to revisit questions relating to the quality of dance education programmes and to design a new edition of the existing publications.

The Quality Framework 2026 project aims to focus on the broad spectrum of dance education programmes and settings for a wide range of target and age groups in education and society as well as on contemporary developments and current discourses. A revision and adaptation appears to make sense, not least because the current specialist literature continues to refer to the quality framework of the Federal Association and it is used as a reference framework. With its comprehensive work on the subject of quality in dance education, the Federal Association has set a standard that now needs to be reviewed and further developed.

The first steps towards preparing the Quality Framework 2026 have already been taken in small working groups. The result is a basis that is now to be discussed with members of the association in order to develop the future-oriented guidelines.

To kick things off, we would like to hold an online event to present the current status, exchange ideas about it with all interested experts from the membership and discuss the next steps. We are offering two dates so that as many people as possible can take part:

Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm and

Monday, February 24, 2025, 8:00 pm – 9:15 pm

Please register with the specified date to leysner@aktiontanz.de – the Zoom link will then be sent in time.

Professional Support

The Professional Support programme is a tool for further training and thus for quality development that Aktion Tanz has developed with dance artists for dance artists.

The focus of the Professional Support is the development and support of individual potential in dance artistic mediation work. In line with the principle of coaching, the Professional Support also offers help and experience on many levels in challenging dance-artistic mediation contexts.

Possible issues include group dynamic processes, framework conditions, staging of teaching processes and methodological decisions, questions on the relationship level, conflict resolution, verbal and non-verbal communication and much more.

Do you need Professional Support? Specialist facilitators were qualified as part of a further training course organised by Aktion Tanz. They are active in the areas of Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Bremerhaven, Stralsund and North Rhine-Westphalia. If you are interested, please contact the Aktion Tanz e. V. office.

Professional field of dance education

In cooperation with the Society for Dance Research, the discussion paper “A mission statement for the dance education profession?” (only available in German) was published. It was developed after a three-year work phase in a working group initiated by the German Dance Association to promote and acknowledge the dance education profession.

It outlines professional ethical principles as well as professional standards and areas of work in dance education. We see it as an initial impulse to enter into dialogue on questions of high-quality training and teaching in the area of artistic dance with all those involved in the field of dance education.