Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This research paper reflects on the experience of Year 2 performing arts students in a private institution in Curitiba, Brazil, whose curriculum is based on the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate. Ultimately challenging school teachers to create open-ended art experiences that modify students’ perceptions, this research denounces the traditional approach to teaching arts in Brazil and develops how we can recontextualize our identity through the languages of dance and drama. The investigation further examines possible correlations between critical developments in performing arts and personal changes in the self-analysis of their attributes of the IB Learner Profile. The study analyses the children’s considerations of their artistic transformation through their work and body and fosters debates in class inspired by Critical Performance Pedagogy by Elyse Pineau and Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal.