Education in the Arts
All New Zealanders have a right to an education in the arts as part of their schooling. Arts education enables students to generate ideas about themselves, their experiences, and their environments and to express and communicate them in a variety of artistic forms. It enables them to understand how and why individuals, communities, and societies make art works and value the arts, using them for a range of purposes.
In this curriculum, the arts are identified as the separate disciplines of dance, drama, music, and the visual arts. Each has its distinctive body of knowledge with its own concepts, forms, styles, conventions, processes, and means of inquiry. Students will participate in and enjoy dance, drama, music, and the visual arts in a variety of contexts and develop informed attitudes towards traditional and contemporary modes of expression in each discipline.
Learning in the disciplines of the arts impacts strongly on how students think and expands the ways in which they can express ideas, feelings, beliefs, and values and understand those of others. Such learning, which in today's world is vital for communication, understanding, and intellectual and emotional growth, leads to the development of what can be termed "literacies" in the arts.
Literacies in the Arts
Literacies in the arts involve the ability to communicate and interpret meaning in the arts disciplines. We develop literacies in dance, drama, music, and the visual arts as we acquire skills, knowledge, attitudes, and understanding in the disciplines and use their particular visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic signs and symbols to convey and receive meaning.
For the purposes of this curriculum, developing literacies has been adopted as a central and unifying idea. Students develop literacy in each discipline as they:
- explore and use its elements, conventions, processes, techniques, and technologies;
- draw on a variety of sources of motivation to develop ideas and make art works;
- present and respond to art works, developing skills in conveying and interpreting meaning;
- investigate the discipline and art works in relation to their social and cultural contexts.
In developing literacies, students will explore the evolving traditions, conventions, and practices of the arts of New Zealand and of the arts in the international context. They will appreciate the significance and value of toi Māori in different contexts, developing understandings of the ideas and messages expressed in traditional art forms and contemporary developments. They will also investigate how technological advances have affected the ways in which art works are researched, planned, designed, and made, including how print media, electronic media, and other technologies influence communication and interpretation in the arts.
Literacies in the arts require an understanding of particular cultural and practical conventions within each arts discipline. Literacy in one discipline does not imply literacy in another. Each discipline has particular signs and symbols that relate to specific art forms or genres, such as haka, jazz, role-play, painting, rock videos, or tapa-making. Literacy in the art forms and genres of one culture or period does not imply literacy in those of another culture or period.
For example, developing literacies in Māori arts requires an understanding that aspects of reo, tikanga, and whakapapa (origins) are unique to the art forms and practices of particular iwi. Similarly, although drumming accompanies dance in all Pacific communities, each has its own unique tradition that is enhanced by particular types of beat, rhythm, and drum: pate in Cook Islands culture, lali in Samoan culture, nafa in Tongan culture, pokihi in Tokelauan culture, and logo in Niuean culture.
In the same way, the performance practices and conventions of chamber music are different to those of orchestral music or jazz, and knowing and using the conventions associated with Shakespearian tragedy does not guarantee an understanding of the conventions of Greek theatre or television soap opera. Nor does understanding the concepts, forms, and conventions of contemporary Western painting imply similar understandings of contemporary Aboriginal dreamtime painting.
Literacies are as important to people who make art as to its audiences. Makers and presenters of art works need to develop literacy in order to structure ideas and communicate meaning. So too do viewers and listeners, to be able to interpret works in an informed way as they bring their own perceptions, experiences, and values to them.
Developing literacies in dance, drama, music, and the visual arts enables students to grow and to contribute to their schools, communities, and cultures. It is an ongoing process of learning and participation that begins in the arts education of young children and enriches the lives of all New Zealanders.
