Curating participation in dance in museum: An open air museum’s community house occupied by dancers

This article looks at whether museums have unrealized potential in their work with Intangible Cultural Heritage, based upon work experience from curating the second of three dance exhibitions of the project Interactive dance dissemination. The concept of occupation of a museum building is tested by inviting visitors into dancing. The act of receiving and giving a gift, in this case dancing with each other, can work as a method of inviting people into participating in dance as intangible cultural heritage. It debates that the 2003 Convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage works as a potential recommendation to increase democratic processes in participation methods in museum. The article uses an example of a curated dance exhibition event that in many ways fulfil the ten commandments of a Dancing Museum (Boris Charmatz) and analyze how ideas of temporality of a dance exhibition correlates with how to best promote the aesthetics of traditional dance transmission based on the communities’ will to continue their practice of intangible cultural heritage.