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Fakultät Rehabilitationswissenschaften

Modern dance included in UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage List

Black and white photo of two women jumping together by hand. One leg is stretched forward and the other leg is bent backward. © Haeckel Archiv​/​ullstein bild​/​picture alliance
Modern dance beginning, probably around 1910

On November 30, 2022, UNESCO included the practice of modern dance in Germany on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. With this inclusion, UNESCO is honoring a creative form of expression that has not only fundamentally changed the entire dance landscape - including dance education - but is also seen as having important community-building, inclusive and intergenerational significance. The focus is on the creative expression of one's own body and non-standardized forms of movement. Modern dance is primarily about the development of individual movement motifs as well as the search for a common movement aesthetic with other dancers together.