Dance Practices as Research / Heritage Studies (PDF)

Vicky Kämpfe studied Applied Cultural Sciences at the University of Lüneburg. Early on in her studies, she became involved with the topic of her investigation while interning with the German UNESCO-Commission in Bonn and at the Municipal Culture Department of the City of Córdoba, Argentina. After graduating with an M.A., she worked for several years as a project coordinator, in artist management, and also as a dancer. Within the scope of her doctoral studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg, she dedicated herself to the scientific study of cultural practices, specifically dance and movement practices. The successful completion of her PhD, along with her experiences in the field help enable her to realize her vision of a 'society in movement' through a dance and movement project by using theoretical and practical ways to implement it.

The doctorate was completed at Leuphana University Lüneburg, in the faculty of Humanities and Sciences. Her research is focused on discovering howcultural practices, such as intangible heritage, are recognized by institutions including UNESCO and how this recognition modifies their value and function within social structures. She aims to find out which implications cause these potential changes to both cultural heritage and even the practices themselves. Using the Tango as a case study, she is able to find out about the indications of such institutional praxes of recognition. Her investigation is based on Pierre Bourdieu's praxeological approach, which allows her to find out specific concepts referring to intangible cultural heritage and practices of movement. Within the framework of her investigation, Vicky Kämpfe succeeds in re-interpreting constituting terms and concepts of the Convention such as the 'value of the intangible' and 'movement knowledge' and indicates how they could be implemented into practice.

Her intention of investigation and practical implementation work is to realize various forms of intangible