Music and intercultural dialogue rehearsing life performance at school

Abstract

The performing arts can play a key role in intercultural education in a variety of contexts. New creative initiatives are constantly developed, but there is still little theory to support such initiatives. The fusion of Ethnomusicology and Education offers a particularly fruitful perspective as a theoretical dimension to the work being done. This article looks at teacher education and school management and their relationship to intercultural education, collaborative interaction, performance-related behaviour and creative production. The article takes the project music, synergies and interculturality as the starting point for a deeper analysis of these issues.

As práticas performativas podem representar um papel fundamental na Educação Intercultural em vários contextos. Novas iniciativas têm sido testadas neste sentido mas o suporte teórico é escasso. A fusão entre a Etnomusicologia e a Educação pode ser particularmente produtiva neste domínio, produzindo dimensão teórica para o trabalho a realizar. Este artigo considera a formação de professores, a gestão escolar, e o seu relacionamento com a Educação Intercultural nas perspectivas da interacção colaborativa, do comportamento performativo e da produção criativa. Refere o projecto Música, sinergias e interculturalidade como ponto de partida para análises futuras.

Keywords:

• education
• Ethnomusicology
• music
• intercultural dialogue
• school
• performing arts

Notes

1. MUSSI was the name of a she-cat, one of the first characters invented of the project’s year of launch.

2. I especially express here my gratitude to Carlos Cardoso, my academic advisor for this project. I would further like to thank all who participated in MUSSI as well as Jorge Murteira (who also edited a film), Maria da Luz Costa and Luis Gomes among many others.

3. In Portugal, the correspondence of Basic Education cycles and student ages are as follow: first cycle, 6–10; second cycle, 10–12; third cycle, 12–15.

4. In a keynote speech at a colloquium in Viseu, Portugal, on 22 May 2009, Edgar Morin proposed that each government should create its own Observatory of Inequalities, economic in nature, to list and to reduce them every year.