This book is a guide for exploring ideas, influences, and trends. It connects art with education, both formal and informal, with exercises and activities that can be used for all ages, in a classroom or playground, in a theater, in public spaces, or in a cultural reference venue.
It is intended for educators, artists, facilitators, activists, social action organizations, and policy makers in education. It has a pedagogical, artistic, and community character.
The choice of this particular topic was motivated by the concerns expressed by people involved with educational communities about how art can be connected with education, and more specifically, the reception and understanding of the embodied nature of knowledge and experiential learning in the learning process.
Art, using movement - physical expression and community dance as tools, can serve as a means of teaching and approaching the entire range of cognitive subjects, focusing on the emotional, mental, cognitive, and social development of the individual for a well-rounded education of the personality.
Thus, we will be able to teach mathematical concepts by entering a cube and feeling volume and the third dimension with the body itself as a reference point. We will be able to talk about historical events, not by listing dates, but by creating connections with the participants' common personal experiences. We will be able to discuss cultural identity and cultural heritage, where the form of the classical and the unexpected subversion of the contemporary will come not into conflict, but into complete harmony.
When we manage to develop curiosity in the child, from 2 to 100 years old (because we are all children!), critical thinking, a sense of responsibility, and solidarity, then the path is opened to authentic knowledge. In this way, learning becomes more effective and attractive.
