Aesthetic expression in "An open room for interpretation".

Inge Tofte-Hansen. UC-Zealand

Aesthetic expression in

"An open room for

interpretation".

An ‘open room’

for Significance.

• The word "room" has both a concrete and a figurative meaning. Working in an ‘open

room’ for significance is about allowing

creative and aesthetic activities to start based on the possibilities and diversity of the

participants and the expressions.

• In an ‘open room’ filled with interpretations, the teacher is surrounded by children offering

Inspiration and Background.

• A Danish/Scandinavian approach to students or children build on playfulness in a horizontal

relationship.

• Maurice Merleau Pontys’ understanding of body and phenomenology talking about a meaning-

making body in which the senses are interlinked.

• Colwyn Trevarthen research about fundamental forms of expression, a concept called

‘Communicative Musicality’ which expresses the way in which a child seeks emotional connection and hereby a vital issue for cultural learning.

Danish tradition for music activities and teaching

• New reforms thoughts about teaching in the 1930- ties introduced reformatory pedagogical ideas

• Here began a long tradition in Denmark, for taking children's own musical development and creative ability as the starting point for working with

children and music.

• Observation of children and the various ways in which they express their musicality is used as a springboard for teaching music.

Maurice Merleau Ponty

 Merleau Ponty speaks of a meaning-making body in which the senses are interlinked and various senses can make up the base for each other.

 The body is seen as something that exists "in cooperation" with awareness and thought,

complementing and communicating with each other.

Decartes:

"I think, therefore I am", expressed by Descartes

during the 17th century

Merleau Ponty:

Bodily actions make up a starting point for existence:

"I can, therefore I

am"

Where does musicality come from?

• The Scottish psychologist Colwyn

Trevarthen is talking about aesthetic

expression linked to the human need to create and convey meaning in

cooperation with others.

• Musical expression is an aesthetic activity that can be considered as a mode of

communication.

Communicative Musicality

• Colwyn Trevarthen defines Communicative Musicality:

Turn-taking with a shared impulse.

Regulation of voice and movements.

Experience of a shared meaningfulness through interaction.

• The child seeks meaning in a communication process that can develop through musical

expression.

Impuls Framework

Openness

Control

The teacher’s initiative can start with an

"impulse" that "tunes" the children into the activity. It allows each child - as well as the group - to create meanings when encountering the aesthetic interactions.

The inventiveness of the children is awakened by an impulse, which is the starting point for the activity.

This need to be framed and controlled.

The activity becomes an interplay between control and openness.

Creative and aesthetic activities contain many elements.

• Teaching and interacting with children through activities requires the ability to play, to

encounter and support the child's imagination and sensory presence, and to identify the

learning and developmental potential of the activity.

• The experiences of the children are expressed in an articulation through music, body,

colours, dancing and several other elements.

Teaching adult students

• When you invite adults not only to talk about aesthetic activity in pedagogical work but also to participate in musical and dramatic processes it often implies

problems because no adult wants to be childish!

• In this connection it is important to acknowledge that the creative process is build up from several levels

which is going on parallel:

 a temporary regression to early childhood filled with free associations, dreams, daydreams and fantasy

 a simultaneous process on a cognitive & critical level

What does the pedagogical work require?

• Knowledge of a variety of modes of expression.

• Abilities in the areas of singing, dancing, drama, painting etc.

• A certain repertoire in terms of various modes of expression.

• Awareness of own strengths, weakness and limits.

To organize, inspire and initiate.

• Creative activity contains organization, inspiration and initiating combined with an awareness of the resources and potential of

expression of the group as a whole.

• The pedagogue must initiate the activity but also be ready to intervene and support the children on their own terms.

• This requires a conscious selection of modes of

expressions and awareness in terms of the children's bodily and sensory presence within the creative

community.

“To jump a song and sing a Role”

• Drawing lines from

improvisation and free dance in a music-

context, body and

movement are two vital elements in the life of a child.

• The child does not

separate language, body or activity but works in a bodily manner during the play and tell stories.

Sources:

• Løkken, Gunvor. Using Merleau-Pontyan phenomenology to understand the toddler i Nordisk Pedagogik, vol. 20, no.1, 2000, p.13.

• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception.

Translated by Donald A. Landes. New York: Routledge, 2012.

• Tofte-Hansen, Inge. (2015) An open room for interpretation.

European Journal of Social Education / Journal Européen d’Éducation Sociale no. 12/27 – 2015 p. 137-144.

• Trevarthen, C. Musicality and the intrinsic motive pulse:

Evidence from human psychology and infant communication in rhythms, musical narrative and the origins of human

communication. Musicae Scientiae, Special issue, 1999-2000.

European society for the cognitive sciences of music, Liège, pp. 157-213.