As part of the “Tanzt kunterbunt!” project, initiated and organized by the LUNA PARK initiative, groups of children from the Kitas “Kunterbunt” and “Der kleine Muck” in wedding have been receiving weekly dance lessons since 2013, guided and supervised by dance artists and dance educators. At the same time, the neighboring Gesundbrunnen Elementary School organizes dance classes for its first-grade students.

During several intensive workshops, the children from the daycare centres meet with the first graders and show each other what they have learned. Small stage programs are put together from choreographies they have created themselves and rehearsed with the help of the dance artist, to music chosen by the children from a pool of music and songs to which the children have danced during the courses. Public presentations of the stage programs took place, among other places, at the Centre Français de Berlin, at school-yard and district festivals.

The aim of the artistic-dance support within the framework of this project is to stimulate the children’s motor and mental development and to develop skills that will enable them to integrate successfully into society. In addition, the project expands networks and promotes the exchange of “best practice” methods in teaching extracurricular artistic activities and in the dance-artistic transition of daycare children to school.

The project “Tanzt kunterbunt!” is carried out by the LUNA PARK initiative in cooperation with the Gesundbrunnen elementary school and the Kunterbunt and Der kleine Muck daycare centres. The project is realized and supported within the framework of the measure “ChanceTanz” conceived by the Bundesverband Tanz in Schulen e.V. (Federal Association of Dance in Schools) and is supported by the funding program “Kultur macht stark. Bündnisse für Bildung” funding program, with financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The funding program aims to enable children and young people to recognize their own abilities and develop skills and attitudes that will strengthen them for life as a whole by engaging them in art, music, theater, dance and literature.