Oral presentation | Oslo Met, Norway | 29 August 2019
Echoes of “GermInArte”: A project on artistic transformation for social and human development since childhood
Ana Isabel Pereira CESEM – NOVA FCSH Lisbon, Portugal [email protected]
Helena Rodrigues Musical Sciences Department, CESEM – NOVA FCSH Companhia de Música Teatral Lisbon, Portugal
Paulo Maria Rodrigues DeCA Department, INET-MD/University of Aveiro Companhia de Música Teatral Aveiro, Portugal
Paulo Ferreira Rodrigues DELCA, Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa/IPL CESEM – NOVA FCSH Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract Opportunities for artists, educators and other professionals to share training processes, and to cooperate towards a final performance are scarce. This diagnosis influenced the design of a recent project that inscribe arts into cooperative practices. The “GermInArte project – Artistic TransFormation for Social and Human Development since Childhood” main goals were to: (i) design good artistic training practices, (ii) qualify human resources to intervene in children’s social and human development. Running from 2015 to 2018, this project resulted from a partnership between Companhia de Música Teatral and NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. “GermInArte” is also a process of “Trans-Formation” in a sense that it is always in evolution, it does not format people, but allows them to build from their inner needs and motivations. Thus, it contains within the seeds of learning to know, to do, to live together, and to be. We believe that this process needs first to be inscribed in those who work with children. Only then conditions are met for children to also reach these learning objectives. Therefore, the project offers the learning to know and to do by acquiring the necessary skills and the required creative thinking to interact with children using music as a mediator; learning to live together since it adopts a “cluster” training, i.e., individuals from different areas of knowledge, and different ways of relationship with the educational act come together in the same learning / creative environment; and learning to be by providing the environment for each person to develop human and socially respecting each one’s pace. The project developed along three axes: the design and implementation of several modalities of immersive training; a transitive training; and an International Colloquium “Arts for childhood and social and human development”. The immersive trainings were designed as an artistic residence, which encompassed the design process and final presentation of a musical-theatrical piece, addressed to both infants and parents (“Inner Garden”, “Kaleidoscope”, “Dabo Domo”). The transitive training was designed to travel across the country and to reach a higher number of people than the immersive one. Three different modules of three hours each were implemented based on musical material from a previous project’s publication (“Manual for Building Inner Gardens”). The purpose was to disseminate the tools and working processes arising from the immersive trainings, allowing other educational and social agents to enrich and diversify their professional practice. The international colloquiums provided a space to share the training processes developed along each year, and to discuss how the Arts can support and contribute towards children’s development. Several guest speakers from around the world were invited to come and share their perspective on the theme. The project is well documented: a publication describing the working processes and the main outcomes (“Echoes of GermInArte”); a reporter’s field journals on the immersive trainings and the trainees’ daily reflections; several trailers about the transitive and immersive trainings; and a documentary around the trainees’ testimonies and the project’s philosophy (“Flying from the fingertips”).
Keywords Arts for childhood, Immersive training, Transitive training, Human and social development
Full Program: https://www.oslomet.no/om/arrangement/art-in-education/programme-art-in-education