ITI / UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts

The ITI/UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts is a joint initiative of
UNESCO and ITI together with more than 40 higher education and research institutions. It was
built in alignment with the guidelines and procedures of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chair and
Network Programme. The Network´s main focus is higher education in the performing arts –
drama, theatre, dance, music theatre, playwriting and all related performing arts disciplines.

It is overseen by an executive board drawn from member institutions, voted for by the
members of the Network. It is coordinated by the International Theatre Institute’s General
Secretariat based in Shanghai.

The Network is a non-profit organization. It is non-political in its nature. It welcomes members

from all continents, independent of their socio-economic condition, race, religion, ethnicity,
gender, culture and nationality. The Network is based on democratic principles and it follows
the core values of collaboration, inclusiveness, transparency and inspiration.

The goals of the Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts are:
• To make education in the performing arts accessible to all populations of students regardless
of socio-economic condition, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, culture or nationality.
• To promote the professional education in the performing arts worldwide for the
enhancement of the skills of professionals in the field.
• To exchange knowledge and best practices on different methodologies for education in the
performing arts.
• To develop and share innovative models for higher education in the performing arts.
• To support higher education in the performing arts all over the world, including developed
and developing countries – with a special focus on Africa, in alignment with the UNESCO global
priority “Africa”.
• To initiate collaboration between the members of the Network.
• To protect and promote unique manifestations of “cultural identity” as observed and
demonstrated by members of the network from their cultures – in alignment with the UNESCO
Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
• To create a project to designate and preserve Intangible Heritage in the Performing Arts
globally – in alignment with UNESCO and ITI.
• To advocate for peace, mutual understanding and respect through education in the
performing arts – in alignment with the goals of UNESCO and ITI.
• To bring together students and educators in the performing arts and professionals of the
performing arts for the benefit of the profession.
Objectives
To reach these goals the Network can realize the following projects or activities – initiated and
organized by its members or part of its members, regionally or internationally: school festivals,
conferences, congresses (whenever possible in conjunction with the ITI World Congress),
exchange programs for educators and students of the network, research projects, intangible
heritage research and preservation activities – in conjunction with UNESCO and ITI,
dissemination of knowledge in print or via digital and audio-visual publications, exhibitions,
competitions, awards, and any other event or activity which supports the goals of the Network.

Current Research and Studies

To begin, it is important to understand why schools should implement arts education in the first
place. What are the connections between children’s exposure to the performing arts and their
intellectual and social development? According to numerous studies, the performing arts
create a powerful positive impact on children in various ways. In this section of my thesis, I will
summarize overall research findings, elaborating on the nuts and bolts of exactly why the
performing arts produce such beneficial results for young people. The performing arts’ impact
on youth has been a topic of examination for years.
An important study took place in 1997: The National Educational Longitudinal Survey. This
survey—the first study that I consulted during my research—provides reliable insight into child
development, as it examined more than 25,000 students over the course of ten years (Catterall
and Chapleau). Longitudinal studies evaluate the same subjects over an extended period of
time, so these same students were evaluated at an early age and then re-evaluated at the end
of their high school careers. Essentially, researchers James S. Catterall and Richard Chapleau
placed the key findings into three separate categories explained below.

First, the research showed a correlation between involvement in the arts and academic success.
Throughout the ten-year study, positive student development grew even more evident over
time. Academic achievement was also found in students from families of low socioeconomic
status: a key group that I will examine in my case study.

The next category of findings proved a positive relationship between music and mathematics
achievement. According to the study, students who played a musical instrument through high
school were significantly more proficient at math than their non-instrument-playing student
counterparts.
Finally, researchers placed findings into a third category: theatre arts and human development.
Students’ involvement in plays, musicals, drama club and acting classes yielded various results,
including the following: improved reading proficiency, growth in self-concept and motivation,
increased empathy and tolerance for others. These results held true for youth from families of
low socio-economic status as well (Catterall and Chapleau).

This research undoubtedly exemplifies that the arts benefit youth. It is a longitudinal study that
compares a control group of students who did not participate in the arts to an experimental
group of students who partook in artistic activities. The fact that both groups were evaluated
at an early age and re-examined at the end of high school—and the fact that these same
subjects were evaluated as part of the longitudinal study—makes the evidence extremely
credible. Research like this should be presented to policy makers in order to incorporate the
arts into school curricula. These findings absolutely prove that students who participate in the
arts attain invaluable personal growth that their non-artistic counterparts do not develop.
Lisa Phillips, CEO of Canada’s Academy of Stage and Studio Arts, is an author as well as an arts
and leadership educator whose work strongly supports arts education. Her book, The Artistic
Edge: 7 Skills Children Need to Succeed in an Increasingly Right Brain World explores how the
arts develop leadership skills needed for children to grow into successful adults. In January
2013, her findings were featured in a Washington Post article listing the top ten skills that
children learn from the arts. She lists the following skills as products of arts education:
creativity, confidence, problem solving, perseverance, focus, nonverbal communication,
receiving constructive feedback, collaboration, dedication and accountability (Strauss).
Phillips also mentions that some people want to change the nation’s current educational
emphasis from STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to STEAM, incorporating the
arts (Strauss). In particular, the STEM to STEAM initiative is currently being spearheaded by the
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). According to the STEM to STEAM website, teachers,
researchers, policymakers, students and businesspeople involved with arts organizations across
the nation support this movement. The objectives of the STEAM initiative are as follows (Rhode
Island School of Design):
• “Transform research policy to place art and design at the center of STEM
• Encourage integration of art and design in K through 20 [kindergarten through
20 years old] education
• Influence employers to hire artists and designers to drive innovation”
What happens when students are exposed to the performing arts outside of school?
Researchers in the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform found that school
field trips to live theatre performances enhance literary knowledge, tolerance and empathy
among students (University of Arkansas Fayetteville). This study found that reading and
watching film versions of Hamlet and A Christmas Carol did not produce the increase in
knowledge that students gained when they attended the live theatre plays. Additionally, when
researchers administered a tolerance measure, students who attended the plays scored higher
on that evaluation than students who did not attend the performances. Young people who
attend live theatre performances are also better at recognizing and understanding what other
people think and feel, according to this study (Hitt and Kraybill).

This research distinguishes itself as concrete support for the fact that exposure to the arts
creates a major positive impact on young people. In this study, students were randomly placed
into two groups by a lottery system: a control group of students who did not attend the live
performances and an experimental group of students who saw the plays. Because these groups
were randomly selected and compared to each other, the results are definitely credible. When
conducting research to prove that a variable such as the performing arts affects subjects such
as young people, it is crucial to eliminate unnecessary factors that may sway the findings. In
this study, no other factors could have distorted the results. Therefore, this study and the
longitudinal study explained earlier are both excellent examples of research that absolutely
proves how the performing arts have an undeniably positive influence on young people.

Another ten-year study comes from researchers Heath and Roach, who examined 124 youth-
based out-of-school organizations in economically disadvantaged communities in both rural
and urban locations. These researchers found that students who participated in these arts
organizations’ programs not only developed skills in the arts, but they also developed important
life skills and gained valuable experience such as the following (Heath and Roach):
• Students had opportunities to practice using their imaginations in a realistic context with
limited resources, learning from their failures and successes.
• Students had opportunities to converse with adult mentors and learn from them. They
learned skills in decision-making and strategy-building.
• Students showed a dramatic increase in their use of complex language—specifically, in
syntactic complexity, hypothetical reasoning and questioning approaches.
• Students developed their linguistic habits, language skills and artistic technique both at school
and outside of it.
• Students became aware that by combining their talents and abilities, they could contribute to
their communities. Follow-up data with these students, collected years later, reveals that a
significant number of students stay in their communities and work to enhance their areas’ civic
growth.
• Students participating in arts organizations’ programs have higher self-esteem than high
school students who are not involved in the arts.
Heath and Roach concluded that, while all youth organizations—not only artistic, but also
religious, athletic, service-oriented, etc.—provide mentoring relationships, collaborative group
dynamics and a balance of play and work, only arts organizations allow students opportunities
for imaginative creativity. Evidently, arts-centered youth organizations produce outcomes in
skill building for youth that transfers into involvement in school, work, home and civic life.
However, one aspect about this study—and numerous other studies on the performing arts’
effects on young people—could use improvement: its lack of a control group. This thesis
explores how arts advocates can conduct research by using the proper experimental procedure,
which includes a randomly selected control group (the group that does not receive the variable
—in this case, performing arts exposure), experimental group (the group that receives the
variable) and an isolated variable. Arts advocates must approach studies in this manner
because this data will isolate the performing arts variable and thus demonstrate that the arts
directly influence child development. This topic will be explored more later. Nonetheless, the
Heath and Roach study remains relevant because it illustrates benefits for children immersed in
the performing arts.

All of these individual studies draw the same conclusion: The arts produce invaluable benefits
for youth. Also, these studies examine the impact of arts both inside and outside of schools.
Here, another question arises: When it comes to incorporating the performing arts into a child’s
life, is one way better than another? For example, does in-school education, a field trip to a
performance or involvement in outside arts organization programs yield stronger results? Matt
Wisley is the Student Services Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Arts Administration at the
Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs and former school director at
Windfall Dancers, Inc. in Bloomington. He explored this question:
“Any exposure to arts at younger ages helps to in still a love for the arts. It’s
important for youth to see professional performances so that they get to see what a polished,
finished project looks like compared to a second grade talent show.
Both in-school visits and field trips are important. The great thing about a field trip is the
students also get the feel of an actual performance space rather than a school cafeteria stage.
“Also, having low-stress learning opportunities at a young age is important. I find that students
that get to take a workshop or a small session in the performing arts learn whether or not they
have an interest in it rather than signing up to be in a production that might have more stress
value on it. These small workshops and sessions help students gain an interest without the
pressure of performing. Those children that find an interest in it will start joining higher impact
classes to start working on their skills and technique. Those who don’t have an interest will find
something else but will not begrudge the experience since it is short.”

Another opinion on this question comes from Gail Bray, Drama Instructor at Stages
Bloomington. She says the following:
“I doubt that there’s one best way for instilling a love of the performing arts in youth. All of the
things mentioned [in this section of the thesis] have a positive impact since they expose
children to theatre and the performing arts.
“Perhaps there are two parts to this: developing a passion for performing is one and creating a
passion for supporting live theatre and the performing arts is the other.
“The other method I can think of…is participating in productions, choirs, dance performances,
etc. Or maybe even when [children] come across the performing arts unexpectedly as in the
flash mob performances that were popular a while back or guerilla theatre events.”
Thus, there is no single best means of instilling a love of the performing arts in youth provided
that these initial introductions to the arts do not put stress on children. Any positive
introduction to the performing arts can ignite an interest that can develop dramatic intellectual
and social growth in young people.
 Current Sources of Information
Canadian literature has often been commissioned by government bodies to measure
participation and importance of performing arts, often by discipline, in the lives of Canadians.
Notable publishers are Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Statistics Canada and
the Ontario Arts Council. Hill Strategies provides additional analysis of Statistics Canada’s arts
and culture surveys.
In Quebec, there has been considerable reflection on the social role of performing arts
presenters, most recently through the Forum national sur la diffusion des arts de la scène in
2007. This reflection took place in a unique provincial context where cultural policy enjoys
unflagging government support. L’Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec
which is part of l’Institut de la statistique du Québec provides a range of cultural statistics for
the province of Quebec.
Other Canadian sources that place culture − and with it live performing arts − into a larger
context are:
 Creative City Network of Canada that has undertaken research on rural and urban
revitalization;  Cultural mapping across Ontario designed to enhance tourism and quality of
life for residents.  Place branding and economic development projects have placed arts and
culture centre stage.  Cultural Human Resources Council published a key study in 2011 called
Culture 3.0: Impact of Emerging Digital Technologies on the Cultural Sector in Canada.
Audience development research has received a great deal of attention in recent years, with
some of the earliest and most extensive work done in the USA. The work undertaken by The
National Task Force on Presenting and Touring the Performing Arts resulted in a seminal work,
An American Dialogue, published in 1989. Convened to “envision the future of our field and
build a philosophical framework for action”, it serves as inspiration for the present pan-
Canadian study on the Value of Presenting.
Over the past 20 years leading researchers have evolved a new language of value and benefit of
performing arts in society. The US-based private research company WolfBrown has built a large
body of work, spanning from audience development to the American arts eco-system to
community-based evaluations. Recently, WolfBrown has undertaken research for Ontario’s
performing arts practitioners.
Additionally, we have included European and other international sources that have contributed
studies measuring impacts of the arts on health and well-being.
 Education and Learning
Numerous benefits have been observed with young people, when using the arts either for the
purpose of arts education per se or for the purpose of providing an alternative, positive social
context:

 The opportunity for underprivileged youth to learn about the arts, to develop their own,
respected forms of expression.
 The development not only as an individual but as a member of a team to better deal
with social challenges including integration of cultures, encouraging the healthy co-
existence of different customs or dealing with socio-economic issues like poverty.
 Increased self-confidence and encouragement of free expression without fear of being
judged.
 Interest in the arts can motivate young people to pursue their studies to develop skills
to attain a specific work or position, discovered through the arts.
 Through participating in the arts young people develop self-confidence, leadership
abilities and variety of skills.
In short performing arts have proven their capacity to facilitate and enhance learning. Learning
through the Arts20, a Canada-wide program by The Royal Conservatory of Music that uses
performing, visual and literary arts to teach a variety of curriculum has been assessed
independently by Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (O.I.S.E.) and found to accrue
multiple important benefits:
“The study reported that LTTA students produce written work of higher quality. They make
more frequent and better use of the library and the internet. They learn to respect their
teachers and fellow students. They cause fewer incidents of behavioral disruption, leading to an
increase in the class time spent on instruction. These improved student attitudes lead to higher
scores in standardized tests.”

“In one of many examples reported to researchers by principals of LTTA schools, students at
Gateway Elementary School, an inner city school that includes 55 cultural and linguistic
minorities, scored 17% above the provincial average in math testing.”

“The impact of the program extended far beyond the academic arena. Students gained the
means to connect with their parents, to discover their cultural roots, and to overcome
prejudice and develop a strong sense of purpose.”
Dr. Ann Patteson, International/National Director of Research for Learning through the Arts, has
researched and written extensively on arts-infused education, as well as how the arts may
foster understanding of social justice and the environment.
She has also researched, and affirmed, the impact of specific Music Education Programs led by
the National Arts Centre across Canada.
Another example of the intersection of performance and education comes from Concrete
Theatre21 in Edmonton, Alberta which creates participatory theatre by professional actors for
schools. One of their longest running works is “Are We There Yet”, by Jane Heather22 a play on
sexuality health. “Drawing a parallel between mastering driving skills and negotiating
relationship dilemmas, this award-winning play humorously opens a dialogue on sex. The
metaphor creates instant ease - it engages them and it’s funny. The laughter releases the
tension, helps young people feel safe, and allows them to talk about the situations on stage and
by proxy, in their lives. The participatory nature of the play encourages the audience to increase
their knowledge and practice problem-solving skills as they explore dilemmas that are relevant
to them. The program helps teens sift through all the messages and determine safe and
respectful practices in their own worlds and relationships.”
A broadly-based Community University Research Alliance has been created made up of theatre
and health organizations, university researchers and independent artists to fully evaluate the
impact of this play on participants.

Rural Communities
In Developing and Revitalizing Rural Communities through Arts and Creativity by the Creative
City Network of Canada a powerful case is presented:
“Challenges for rural communities in Canada include declining and aging populations, problems
with youth retention, limited economic and social opportunities for residents, depleting natural
resources, loss of local services, and higher costs of living (Nicholls, 2005). Similar situations are
found in rural communities in other countries. As rural communities re-envision and reposition
themselves, they are seeking to revitalize, diversify their economic base, enhance their quality
of life, and reinvent themselves for new functions and roles. Literature on the arts and creative
business development in rural communities is largely positioned within this context.”
This report examines the relationship between local art and visiting artists or touring
companies:
“While professional artists and cultural workers played a role in the communities surveyed, the
‘backbone of cultural capacity’ in all the communities was ‘volunteer initiative and community
participation’. As well, the ‘divide between amateur and professional artists’ was not perceived
to be as deep as in urban centres.” (Brooks-Joiner & McKay, 2008)
“Rural art is associated with capacity building, empowerment, collaboration, expanded
networking opportunities, and individual and community transformation. The most successful
community arts projects in rural settings enable the community to feel they are acquiring skill
even as they are “building social structures where they could give expression to their emotional
and spiritual lives" (Brotman, cited by Canadian Cultural Observatory, 2007).”
“The importance of nourishing local culture by injecting outside influences, such as the
presence of local or outside professional artists, into local community work is highlighted
(Brotman, 2007; Nolte, 2007). Both arts professionals and volunteers in rural communities feel
distant from the centres of the cultural world and the injections of outside influences “go a long
way in addressing [this] loneliness” (Brotman, 2007). For visiting artists, their expectations are
challenged by ‘the uniqueness of each region’s individual members, its cultural, social,
economic and political ecologies,’ and the interactive experience that can rebuild the trust lost
through the professional artist experience (Nolte, 2007).”
As such this study reveals that:
“Touring offers access to high-quality professional productions, extends the range of work
available in rural communities, and provides meaningful experiences for both presenters and
audiences: Rural touring is not a poor substitute for the kind of experience offered by urban
arts venues. It is qualitatively different in several respects. The facilities may not be as good, but
the intimacy of the space, the opportunity to meet the performers, the fact that most of the
audience know each other – these give a village hall show a unique power. Indeed, they can
make it a more challenging experience for the audience, who often come for reasons
unconnected with an interest in the arts, and for the performers, who cannot expect people to
be familiar with their work. Both artists and audiences consistently feel that such shows are
exciting, memorable and have a quality which is distinctively valuable. (Matarasso et al., 2004)”
And finally:
“Reports from funders tend to emphasize the importance of touring activities to broaden
access to and develop new audiences for high quality, professional arts and cultural projects in
rural areas (e.g., Canada Council for the Arts, 2001, 2008; Hunter, 2006).”
 An American Perspective
An American Dialogue (1989) defines presenting as a function broadly: “Presenting
encompasses all the performing arts, from every period, in every conceivable style, form and
setting. It entails understanding the complexity of the arts and our communities, dealing with
unfamiliar artists and expressions before they are widely accepted, reaching those whom
others may overlook, and expanding the concept of community to embrace more than
audience alone.”
This report takes an arts-centric perspective tied to serving communities: “Where artistic vision
(i.e. a strong focus on the arts rather than on the audience), artistic engagement (i.e. the
presenter’s contribution to artist development), and a strong relationship with community exist
within a well-run and tightly managed organization, the presenter can create an environment in
which art and artists flourish and communities are well served.”
The community role is defined in terms of support for the arts and artists and presenting
diverse arts experiences. The socio-political community role of presenting in relationship to
artists expression is also brought forward: “The fullest development of our society is served if
we use presenting and touring both to respond to change and be agent of it.” This suggests a
powerful concept of the presenter as social architect.
In recognition of the importance of the creative chain, An American Dialogue calls for better
communication between presenters, agents and artists that is less focussed on managerial
booking transactions and more holistic in nature.

An International Perspective
In March 2012, Creative Intersections: Partnerships between the arts, culture and other sectors
was published by IFACCA in Australia with participation of Canadian funding organizations. This
report “represents one of the first attempts to research and analyze creative intersections, their
forms and structures and the policies that influence them. The objective of the research project
was to look at the ways that artists are working in diverse settings (from communities through
to the commercial sector) and the nature of partnerships (‘intersections’) that exist between
the arts and other sectors. It also looked at the ways that governments at all levels (local,
national, international) initiate, support or influence such relationships through policies or
programs.”
It outlined existing partnerships between arts and other sectors including:

 Education
 Health
  Environment
 Social cohesion/inclusion
 Social transformation and change
 Community development
 Human rights, democracy and citizenship
 Citizen security and disaster recovery
 Science and technology
 International Development
 Business, marketing and management including but not limited to creative industries
Some of these intersections are more developed in some regions of the world than in others
often depending on stages of development and context. “There appear to be geographical
differences in policy-making with Europe inclining towards themes such as social cohesion,
health, intercultural dialogue and education. In Europe regional funding is very much focused
on social cohesion. Other regional preferences observed were that youth (mainly prevention of
urban violence and young people in risk of social exclusion), citizen security, social
transformation, health, gender, social cohesion, development and corporate social
responsibility were a priority in Latin America whereas in Africa the main themes include
development, creative industries, health (mainly HIV), nation development and the role of
culture in community. In Australia and the South Pacific there appeared to be a leaning towards
education, health, social cohesion (minority and vulnerable groups), community development
and environment, while in North America the focus seemed to be on health, community
development and education, and in Asia arts education, management, children and youth, and
science.”
Many of these areas have also been explored within the Value of Presenting study in order to
better understand specifically how presenters view their roles and the activities they currently
undertake.
 Cultural Hegemony
Cultural hegemony, like many of the terms associated with participatory practice, is an
expression rarely heard in the context of the performing arts, except perhaps in the
obituaries50 of radical theatre makers such as John McGrath (Founder and Director of 7.84
Theatre Company). Although originally forged from Gramsci’s desire to explain and, ‘theorise
the role of the working class in a bourgeois revolution’,51 in cultural terms, it has come to be
understood as a means of explaining the dominance between what is often defined as ‘high art’
and ‘popular’ culture. The former mostly seen as being of greater cultural value in terms of
public funding: an assumption that begins with Keynes’ proposal of ‘The Best for the Most’ as
the first slogan for the Arts Council in 1945 and, some might say, continued in the current
concept of offering, ‘Great Art for All and Everyone’.
Baz Kershaw, in his seminal publications of the ‘90s, The Radical in Performance and The Politics
of Performance celebrates the role alternative theatre movements of the ‘60s, ‘70s and 80s
played in offering an oppositional view to the ‘dominant culture’: creating work that used ‘the
nature of their audience and its community’ as its starting point. By embracing the aesthetics
of those communities, he suggests these companies (Welfare State International, 7.84, Forced
Entertainment and others) created performances that were as radical in form as they were in
content.
For those engaged in participatory practice it is impossible to ignore the fact that access to the
arts is still very much a privilege of the ‘dominant culture’. It is equally impossible to ignore that
what was once considered ‘radical’ in form, content and aesthetics has largely been subsumed
– from site-specific, to immersive, to participatory work - to the mainstream. Bell hooks’
critique of hiphop in, We Real Cool: Black men and Masculinity52 provides just one example of
the way the ‘transformative power’ of counter culture can be turned around once it is adopted
by the dominant culture.
As writer and analyst Meredith Tax notes in the title of her 1972 essay on ‘Radical Perspectives
in the Arts’53 ‘Culture is not neutral’, not politically, socially or in any other way. The very
existence of a dominant narrative within culture, Thomas and Rappaport assert, means most,
‘communities are typically excluded from control over the means to uncover, interpret, and
create their own identity’54. Participation in arts is one important way, they suggest, of
enabling minority communities to amplify their experiences of connectedness and
empowerment. Mattingly55 (2001) concurs with this in her discussion of community theatre
with ‘at risk’ teenagers’; stating that being offered increasing input into the narrative of the
work increases both one’s sense of ‘authority’ and one’s ability to define oneself and one’s
place in the world.
In seeking to reveal these stories and validate these experiences, participatory art has a
responsibility to understand the context in which it sits. And to continually question whether in
engaging its participants it is doing little more than imposing its own cultural hegemony or
legitimising the hierarchical economic, social and political status quo. As political theorist
Nancy Fraser, suggests in her essay on cultural ‘recognition’ (1995) in the twentieth century56,
‘Cultural domination’ could be said to have replaced, ‘exploitation as the fundamental injustice’
in our society: ‘cultural recognition’ or engagement with culture increasingly used as a means to
deal with inequality and, ‘displace socioeconomic redistribution as the remedy for injustice and
the goal of political struggle.’