Arts Education 20: Introduction to Community Engagement through Arts Education Performance Project

In the spring quarter of 2017, the UCLA Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) program offered its very first GE class, Introduction to Community Engagement through the Arts. In the class, approximately 60 undergraduate students from a wide range of majors and backgrounds met to explore the possibilities of individuals and communities to be uplifted and empowered by community arts practices that are inclusive, culturally and socially relevant, and intentionally transformational. In addition to students various theories and lenses from which to understand the complexity of arts in community— where, when, how, why, and with whom it happens- the students and instructors relied on a process-driven creative model to simulate the experience of a community coming together to make an original, theme-based, collaborative, tone poem performance piece. This is the video version of that class project: a work-in-progress, but something the entire class contributed to and is very proud of.