'Why study the arts at school?' This book offers a fresh perspective on this question. Informed by rigorous research, the book argues that the arts help young people to develop key skills, knowledge and practices that support them to become both critical appreciative audiences and socially engaged cultural producers. Drawing on a three-year study…

When using theatre as an educational tool many artist teachers spend unnecessary time on the artistic product, and forget that the transformational process is where the focus should be.

In the framework of DiMPAH (Digital Methods Platform for Arts and Humanities), an online course "e-spect@tor for performing arts" has been designed to make available digital methods created by the Digital Humanities project "The spectator's school" to the scientific community and the students. The main aim of this course is to…

On the premise that performances and writing can be staged, and that no staging is ever innocent, we tell two unresolved, wonder-oriented phenomenological stories of Relaxed Performances (RP) that reveal 'affective trouble': the delivery of a 'cripped' fashion show at a university and a church-based 'relaxed' choir performance. We compose these…

Teaching artists typically work as solo agents, without the comradery of a like-minded community. After a year of focus groups, teaching observations, and conversations with school and arts administrators, we identified a need for experienced teaching artists to have a chance to reflect upon, renew, and reconsider their teaching practices with…

In theater arts education and arts education more broadly, scholars and policy makers now navigate forces associated with the well-documented neoliberal turn shaping discussions of competition, performance, privatization, and austerity. Thus, in response to the special issue's call, this article directs attention to the ways in which historical…

Theater educators, like their music, dance, and visual arts counterparts, had to pivot quickly to provide educational opportunities in theater for students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article outlines how two national associations, the Educational Theater Association, and the American Alliance for Theater in Education, responded to the…

This article explores the ways in which two years of increased isolation due to COVID affected a cohort of applied theatre students and how their instructors addressed students' elevated anxiety and disconnection from community. In the spring semester of 2022, I was working as the teaching intern for the course Applied Theatre Praxis taught by…

This is the second in a series of success stories about how arts organizations, states, schools and other entities are using funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) to support arts education. Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) is one of the nation's 20th largest…

The Creative Learning Initiative (CLI) is a city-wide collaboration between MINDPOP, the City of Austin, Austin Independent School District (AISD), and more than 100 art and cultural organizations dedicated to equitable access to creative learning and the arts for every student in Austin. The CLI model is grounded in research showing that arts…

This article brings into relation critical perspectives and practical tactics from a range of different fields--performance studies, visual art practice, pedagogy and educational theory, and activism and community organising--in order to create some space for re-imagining what might be possible within the dynamics of the Higher Education…

Arts programs have much value to offer children and educators alike, and so it is important to seek avenues for providing these enriching opportunities. Emerging from the collective and personal traumas experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, arts programming may play an especially important role in welcoming students back to schools,…

This interview and response explores the functionalities of the digital platforms Digital Theatre+ (DT+), Drama Online and Cambridge University Press as represented by the interviewees, with a focus on Robert Delamere's DT+. Delamere discusses the history of DT+, and his vision for it to become a site where students can create 'remixes' of DT+…

When financial resources are scarce and uncertain, youth performance organisations find ways to 'hold it together': to carry on no matter what. Engaging critically with theories of organisational resilience, this article examines how two youth performance companies in Auckland experience and respond to a precarious funding environment. The local…

Today's schools are preparing children, starting at an early age, for future educational and career opportunities that will help them succeed. With strict standards that must be met, measured in part by testing, it's not unusual for both time and funding to be shifted away from arts education to achieve this goal. While this might seem like a…