Investigating Reciprocal Relationships in Performing Arts and Learning Processes

Conference: The European Conference on Arts, Design & Education (ECADE2022)
Title: Investigating Reciprocal Relationships in Performing Arts and Learning Processes
Stream: Teaching and Learning the Arts
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
David Allen, City University of New York, United States

Abstract:

This paper investigates reciprocal relationships between the performing arts and learning by engaging with performing artists who also teach. The study is conducted through interviews with theater artists, dancers, and musicians who teach in a range of educational settings. The in-depth interviews elicit the performing artists’ theoretical, practical, and tacit knowledge of how individuals learn within and through artistic processes. These processes include composition, rehearsal, performance, critique, and practice. It builds upon sociocultural and constructivist theories of learning; theoretical and practical studies of the performing arts; and research in arts education, including the practices of teaching artists. It argues that: (1) The processes in which performing artists engage are learning processes and thus offer rich insights into possibilities for teaching and learning in multiple settings, including but not limited to arts education; (2) These processes demand and develop dispositions that are critical both to artistic creation and learning; these dispositions include attention, openness, imagination, curiosity, playfulness, presence, and reflection. It provides detailed examples from the performing artists’/teachers’ practices and perceptions of their practices that illustrate the interaction of performance processes and learning processes. It concludes with implications for how the artistic processes and dispositions may serve as resources for enhancing performing arts practices, as well as arts education and general education practices. It offers questions for future research in how theater arts processes and learning processes intersect and develop.

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