Body percussion and traditional dances. the case of Ball dels moretons in Mallorca.

The aim of this article is to propose the dance "Ball dels moretons" as a pedagogical resource within the corporal expression in the sciences of physical activity and sport, as well as in the subject of music, due to its psychomotor and choreographic richness. This traditional dance from Mallorca, which uses body percussion as a form of cultural expression, has very rich resources to work on motor coordination and dissociation, using exclusively small wooden plates called "els macetes". This research provides a historical and bibliographical state of the art on the origin and development of this dance. For this purpose, fieldwork has been carried out in Mallorca and its main representatives have been interviewed in order to understand its evolution, its learning strategies and its choreographic characteristics for its implementation in the classroom. In the fieldwork carried out in Manacor and the interviews conducted confirm that the learning of body percussion is done by singing and not with pre-recorded music that is listened to. This article can serve as a resource perfectly linkable with other dances in the world that use body percussion such as Esku Dantza, Flamenco in Spain, Schuplattler in Austria, Verbunk in Hungary, Haka in New Zealand, Gumboots in South Africa, and Juba and Hambone in the United States. For all these reasons, the subject "Body Percussion" is suggested as an optional subject to be implemented within the university studies as it already happens at the University of Alicante in the Master of Teaching because there is abundant academic bibliography as well as practical resources.