Expressive Arts

Staff:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun”

Albert Einstein

The Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) spans five disciplines: art, dance, drama, film and digital media and music. Although each discipline has its own discrete body of knowledge and body of skills, it is recognised that together they share the creative process.

Art

Art includes the experimentation and development of an almost limitless range of resources, materials, techniques and processes across all types of art, craft and design to produce a range of outcomes and to demonstrate a personal and creative response. Exploring this Area, both through creative work and other people’s, will engage you with genres, techniques, tools, materials and practices and will enable you to become curious and creative individuals. Responding is a simple sensory reaction to artistic stimulus or a critical analysis of creative work. The ability to reflect will be deepened as you increase your knowledge and understanding of how and why creative work is developed and produced.

Dance

Exploring Dance in Expressive Arts will allow you to experience performing, choreography and appreciation across a range of styles. This exploration will also progress your understanding of how Dance shapes ideas and feelings. You will be encouraged to develop the important skills of refinement and analysis in order to contribute to their creative development.

Drama

The exploration of Drama in Expressive Arts will allow you to experiment with acting, directing, design, technical theatre and arts administration. By exploring forms and disciplines in drama, whether through experimentation, play or formal research and inquiry, you will develop an understanding of how to communicate through visual, physical and verbal means. During the creative process, you will communicate through a variety of art forms or disciplines. Communication includes performing, presenting, sharing, exhibiting and producing with consideration of the audience.

Film and Digital Media

Studying Film and digital media in Expressive Arts will allow you to respond to and even create media forms of television, film, radio, games design, photography, live events and theatrical production skills, print media, social media, sound and audio production. You will be encouraged to adopt skills and use critical vocabulary in order to consider creative work in a range of media, forms, genres and styles.

Music

Music includes performing, improvising and composing, listening and appreciation. You will be able to experiment using your voice, a variety of instruments and music technology. Music is also a powerful medium through which you can explore Wales and its unique traditions and diverse cultures. You will have opportunities to explore your own cultural heritage and that of other people as well as responding and reflecting on the effectiveness of your own work and that of others, including the work of artists from Wales and beyond. Opportunities will be given to be innovative and bold, to create individual work whilst fostering resilience and flexibility to overcome challenges.

Exploring Expressive Arts

Exploring the expressive arts is essential to developing artistic skills and knowledge and it enables learners to become curious and creative individuals. Exploring this Area, both through their own creative work and other people’s, engages learners with genres, techniques, tools, materials and practices and enables them to become curious and creative individuals. Responding and reflecting, both as artist and audience, is a fundamental part of learning in the expressive arts. Responding within the expressive arts engages the emotions and the intellect. Response may be a simple sensory reaction to artistic stimulus or a critical analysis of creative work. The ability to reflect is deepened as learners increase their knowledge and understanding of how and why creative work is developed and produced. Adopting the skills and critical vocabulary encountered in this Area can equip learners to consider creative work in a range of media, forms, genres and styles. Learning the important skills of refinement and analysis can contribute to their creative development.

Creating combines skills and knowledge, drawing on the senses, inspiration and imagination. By engaging with this Area, learners will be given opportunities to be innovative and bold, to create individual work and to develop their own identity as artists in Wales. This learning and experience can foster resilience and flexibility to overcome challenges.

Creating in the expressive arts embraces a range of activities including planning, drafting, designing, making, choreographing, shaping, composing and editing. Creating requires learners to develop and demonstrate control of a range of skills and an application of knowledge.

Whether as creators or as audience, through engaging with the expressive arts, learners can gain an understanding and an appreciation of cultures and societies in Wales and in the world. Such engagement can equip learners with the skills to explore cultural differences through time and place.Importantly, this Area wants to make the expressive arts accessible to all learners and, through this inclusive approach, expand the horizons of every learner. Experiencing the expressive arts can engage learners physically, socially and emotionally, nurturing their well-being, self-esteem and resilience. This can help them become healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

Experiencing the expressive arts can also encourage learners to develop not only their ability to appreciate the creative work of other people, but also their own creative talents, artistic skills and performance skills. The aim is to provide learners with opportunities to explore, refine and communicate ideas while thinking creatively and engaging their imagination and senses.

Engagement with this Area requires personal application, perseverance and close attention to detail, dispositions that contribute to making learners ambitious, capable learners ready to learn throughout their lives.

Experiences in this Area can provide inspiration and motivation as it brings learners into contact with creative processes. This means providing learners with opportunities such as visits to theatres and galleries and bringing the expertise of external practitioners into the classroom.

Engagement with the expressive arts can enhance learners’ employability as they are encouraged to manage their time and resources to achieve meaningful work and meet deadlines. It can foster critical inquiry that can lead to change. Together, these skills can support learners to become enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work.

In addition, the evaluation involved in the creative process enables learners to explore complex issues, to challenge perceptions and to identify solutions. This can lead learners to a better understanding of their own cultural identity and that of other people, places and times. From this experience they are supported to become ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world.