“Lola” project: dance for families of transgender children.
THEMES
– Policies related to sex and gender
– Fighting against discrimination
– Communication
– Education and training in diversity
TARGETED OBJECTIVES
– Dancing as an approach to one’s own body, creativity and sensitivity.
– Recognising oneself and be able to communicate through movement without having to demonstrate or give explanations.
– Dance accesses the most intimate parts of our personality.
MAIN INITIATIVE
The Lola Project is an awareness initiative aimed at transgender children and their families through dance as a non-competitive collective practice. It was started in 2019 in order to create a work team through dance made up of transgender children accompanied by a member of their family, with the intention of building creative pieces of a social nature.
The project was carried out at the Caterina Centre, a place where all the association’s projects are developed, coordinated by Gema Gisbert. It was free of charge to all participants. In 2021 production support for the project was granted by the Valencia City Council and in 2022 the University of Valencia contributed to the production of the video/documentation.
The Lola Project unfolds within an intimate and family environment so that children feel free, supported and protected. Proposals by the development team are presented to the families and put into practice with the consent of all the participants. Team time is managed with a degree of leniency so that each one of the members feels free and respected until they feel an essential part of the group.
BENEFICIARIES
Transgender children between 6 and 12 years old, young people and adults of the same group and relatives. All attend the sessions together.
IMPACT OF THE INITIATIVE
The project has produced an audio-visual document that includes the text that one of the girls wrote together with her father (a writer) “Memory of a Trans Childhood”. The document will be distributed in educational centres to teachers, families and professionals who are related to the group in a social sphere. The aim is for continuity of the project as the transgender children grow to adolescence.
The intention for the upcoming years is to create a dance piece whose performers are the children who participate in the project.
The Lola Project was born with the intention of proposing a healthy and transferable practice to any context interested in enjoying training and education free of prejudice.
SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSFERABILITY
AAs the project and its dissemination evolve, we have been able to verify increased interest in the LGTB community, associations, families and high school teachers.
Among the resources used are audio-visual monitoring, encounters and meetings with
families, surveys and recordings of the text.
The workshops are open to all those families interested in the activity and willing to participate in and promote social projects related to equal rights. This project proposes a practice of continuity, where the most important thing is deepening the activity as an artistic, communicative, creative medium that provides well-being both on a personal and social level.
Its continuity is not at risk since from the beginning it is an initiative of a social nature
that will continue to indefinitely support an emerging group (LGBT children) to defend
rights that are supported by laws, administrations and institutions.
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