When you think of teaching in the art room, what comes to mind? Creating 2D or 3D works of art? Using crayons, paint, paper, glue, scissors to create something? Well children in past years have only created pieces using these mediums and other hands on supplies. However, children can be expressive and creative in other ways in the art room. Would you ever think of using the performing arts in the art room to help students express themselves?
Growing up all I ever used in the art room were the traditional mediums you would find in the art room. Paint, paper, crayons, markers, etc. Not until I got into college did we experiment with using the performing arts to create a piece. We used performance and movement to show a piece of art that we had studied. We used different movements and poses to express the feelings, emotions, poses, etc. that were found in the art work we studied. For instance, the group I was in looked at Picasso's piece titled "Guernica" (below). Each person in the group was a different "character" in the work. We moved around and tried to capture what was originally captured in the 2D piece. Overall, I really enjoyed getting up and moving around in the art room. It was something new and different that I never would have associated with art class before. I really believe that performace should be incorporated into the art room more whenever possible. You can use so many works and come up with so many ideas to incorporate performace and movement into the art classroom. And your students will also enjoy it as well because it will be something different!
By using this form of contemporary art (performance/movement) in the art room, students will be doing something they have never done before in the art room. It will help them get away from the traditional mediums, however, not completely. By incorporating some movement and performances into the art room students will be actively involved in their art class. They will be able to get up and move around, work in groups, and express themselves differently rather than using 2D media. Sometimes getting up and moving around in a class can help students express themselves differently; also some students may be more talented at expressing themselves through performace pieces.
By incorporating many different mediums and options into the art room you will, hopefully, be hitting on everyones talents and interests. If you think about it, performance is a different type of art medium, so why hasn't this been used in the art classrooms more frequently?
2 comments:
I think that performance art hasn't been used in art classrooms simply because teachers are afraid of it or because they aren't comfortable in their bodies! You are right, performance art can be a great tool to help reach everyone's talents--good point!
I believe that art educators should be required to incorporate performance art into their classrooms. This is a different form of art which can be inspiring to some people. And it is just ridiculous that people are not comfortable enough to use this in their classroom. The performances are not for the teacher, they're for the students benefit. Teachers need to get comfortable and use this in their lessons because if they dont they are potentially depriving students of a new learning style/ability. And thats not what we as art educators should be doing to our students.
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