Becoming small: Concepts and methods of interdisciplinary practice in theatre for early years

ABSTRACT

This article aims to look at core concepts in two artistic research projects exploring interdisciplinary approaches to performing arts for young children (interdisciplinarity can here be understood as integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines to develop common approaches to artmaking). Playing, improvisation, presence, musical communication, affective attunement, participation, and interactivity are all concepts that are used widely in the field of art for the early years. To be able to reflect on the concepts and discuss how they are used, I give a short presentation of my PhD project, The Red Shoes Project (2008–14), about improvisation, participation, and children´s play in theatre for early years (TEY). In addition, I give examples from The SceSam Project (2012–16), which investigated interactive dramaturgies in performing arts for children. With research perspectives from these two artistic research projects as context, the particle presents and discusses interdisciplinary artistic research methods and the need to find overarching concepts. The concepts work as tools for reflection and can provide insight, from a theoretical point of view, into the artistic works.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ This installation was made in cooperation with the Sverresborg Trøndelag Folk Museum in Trondheim.

² Nagel was the project leader of SceSam and wrote her PhD thesis on art for children as event (Nagel 2018), a critical discussion of analytical perspectives in art for children with examples from performing arts, children´s books, and children´s book apps.

³ The model is published in Youth Theatre Journal, www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/08929092.2016.1225611?scroll=top.

⁴ Further artistic research on the significance of affect has been explored in the project Neither Fish nor Fowl (Hovik 2019).