The teens will meet via videoconferencing to create a dance theater performance together online. We will facilitate a process in which we ask the kids to make dance phrases based on the kind of movement and folk dances they may have learned in their native countries, thereby allowing them to reconnect with their native cultures through dance and providing an outlet for expression and sharing between cultures.

[Images from Cabula6 in the Macondo]

What they all have in common is that they have fled their native countries due to violence and hardship. As refugees, acclimating to a new culture can be a jarring experience. We hope to provide a virtual cultural exchange through shared creativity that will enable the youth to gain a sense of empowerment as they explore their identities through dance, inspired by their native cultures as well as their newly acquired cultures.

There will also be a workshop element inside the virtual world Second Life which will provide the students with the ability to explore identity through the use of avatars and roleplaying. The workshop will enable them to expand their notions of evolving identity, making it dynamic and creative precisely at a moment in their lives when their multiple identities are both in flux and in danger.

Kidz Connect Vienna<>Berlin will focus on questions about the complexity of contemporary identity while acclimating to a new place, meeting new people, and adjusting to culture shock, and will offer the space for alternate, expansive identity through shared creation in a virtual world, independent of their bodies and histories and hinged, rather, on the scope of their fantasies and dreams. They will be able to locate their past identity through personal memories and “traditional” dance and storytelling, while exploring ideas of current identity and cultural confluence by sharing these stories and dances in a virtual space which encourages collaboration and transcends cultural boundaries, thus offering the basis for creative interaction within their various “real life” worlds.

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So it’s with much delight that I find myself now involved in the fascinating Kidz Connect project, about to embark on a three-week educational frenzy, with an avatar of my own and more accounts and pages than I can reasonably keep track of. Some of the students that the teachers and I will work with will probably already have their own avatars in TSL and be experienced in online communications than I am. I look forward to learning from them. Other teens, we’ll have the joy of introducing to the amazing virtual world of TSL and watching them blossom along with the creation of their avatars.

Personally, I’m most excited about watching the students learn about their counterparts. Since I’m geographically located in Tampa, I’ll see the Floridian teens discover life, culture and youth in Holland and am sure to learn right along with them. Although I did get to travel to Amsterdam, it was before our students were even born! It will also be interesting to see the students here explain about themselves, their community and their country to those abroad.

We have one week to go before classes start and everyone involved with the project is busy finalizing and perfecting lessons plans. But the truth is, I think we all know that planning will only go so far and we’re setting off on an adventure with a group of young people we’ve never met – some of whom we never will meet in person – who will influence us as much as we’ll influence them.

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