Education in the performing arts is a key part of many primary and secondary education curricula and is also available as a specialisation at the tertiary level (needs citation). The performing arts, which include, but are not limited to dance, music and theatre, are key elements of culture and engage participants at a number of levels (needs citation).
The end point for performing arts education varies: some educators integrate arts into school classrooms to support other curricula while simultaneously building students' art skills, and some educators focus on performing arts as an academic discipline in itself.
Performing Arts Integration
Why Art Matters: Dr. Linda F. Nathan at TEDxTheCalhounSchool - An internationally recognized teacher, author, and speaker on school reform, Linda Nathan is the founding headmaster of Boston Arts Academy, Boston's first public high school for the visual...
Performing arts integration in schools
Integrating performing arts into educational experiences can help students learn other subjects, such as science, as well as help them develop various non-arts-based skills. As children grow, engaging them in performance arts can help them meet developmental milestones, including those for motor skills and psychosocial skills. For example, teachers can integrate performing arts and the discussion thereof into their classrooms to honor student self-expression. Bilingual youth can benefit from this type of Arts integration because it offers them modes of communication that can respond more easily to their culture and language than text-based or test-based learning. Regardless of language used, teachers have even found that using performing arts in the classroom, such as improvisational drama, can help students process and prepare for non-arts-based life situations, including Bullying.
Performing arts integration out of schools
Performing arts integration that empowers students in these ways doesn't only happen in schools: community organizations, such as the Beat Nation Collective in Canada, use hip hop performance to help students deepen their understanding of and broaden their experience with indigenous identity and language.
Issues of access and equity
Despite the benefits of engaging students in performing arts, many students, particularly minoritized students such as African American and Latino students, do not have equitable access to performing arts in their school classrooms.
Discipline-based performing arts
The performing arts differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face and/or presence as a medium Performers often adapt their appearance by special clothing, stage makeup, etc.
For students pursuing elite professional careers in performing arts like classical ballet and circus arts, the physical demands are such that early entry into training can be essential (needs citation).
The breadth of areas covered by the performing arts is wide, including:
- Acting - actor, comedian, etc.
- comedy
- drama
- magic
- motion pictures
- opera
- theatre
- music - singer, musician, etc.
- busking
- opera
- dance - dancer
- Circus skills
- acrobatics
- juggling
- marching arts
- performance art a specialized form of fine art in which the artist performs his or her work live to an audience
Prominent providers of performing arts education
Australia
- Helpmann Academy
- National Institute of Circus Arts
- National Institute of Dramatic Art
- Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
India
- Kala Academy
- Darpana Academy of Performing Arts
UK
- The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) founded in 1920.
- The Royal Ballet School founded in 1931.
- The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) founded in 1904.
- The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) founded in 1861.
USA
- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York
- American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York and Los Angeles
- The School of American Ballet, Lincoln Center is located in New York City, United States is the official academy of the New York City Ballet
- Un-Cabaret Laboratories teaches alternative comedy writing & performance
- The Juilliard School in New York City.
- New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA)
- Leland Powers School
Kuwait
- Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts
- Higher Institute of Musical Arts
See also
- Category:Schools of the performing arts
- Category:Drama schools
- National Dance Institute
References
External links
- Arts in the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework
- California Department of Education "Visual and Performing Arts Framework" Preschool to year 12
