Dialoguing@rts: Advancing Cultural Literacy for Social Inclusion through Dialogic Arts Education (d@rts)

Horizon Europe Project just had a kick start in January 2024 and will run for three and a half years. Our UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policies for the Arts and Transformation is actively taking the leading role of one of the work packages in the d@rts project which will develop innovative policy recommendations for the EU with partners from University of Auckland, New Zealand (UNESCO Chair on Dance and Social Inclusion) and Makerere University from Uganda.


D@rts is a catalyst for increasing social cohesion and inclusion, using embodied performing arts activities to develop cognitive and affective cultural literacy. We recognise that the performing arts encompass mass-market consumer goods, as well as non-linguistic, embodied and social activities, providing massive opportunities for inclusive participation.
Our target groups comprise actors of all ages and social positions, especially in the school system and in community arts initiatives. We will empower these groups to be artistically active, dialogically related and culturally literate, giving them tools and motivation to improve their own situations and those of others within the overall frame of a cohesive European society, informed by global perspectives.

Using the post-colonial insight that culture is necessarily heterogeneous, d@rts has four related objectives:

1. Understand how performing arts activities relate to cultural literacy in official discourse and documents across partner countries
2. Use this understanding to build dialogues and co-create physical and digital actions with heterogeneous groups within our target audience
3. Develop assessment tools for these actions, enabling measurable growth in cultural literacy
4. Use our findings in recommendations for cultural and educational policies that build long-term social cohesion and inclusion


Based on these objectives, the overall outputs comprise:

1. Documentary, survey and participatory research findings
2. Performative DIALOGART actions for cultural literacy
3. Policy and practice recommendations to increase social cohesion via cultural literacy actions inspired by the performing arts


d@rts imagines new futures and creates hope and social cohesion through performing arts education. By creating participatory spaces and facilitating dialogues, we empower voices seldom heard. d@rts thus advances cultural literacy, and enhances social cohesion and resilience, to build an inclusive future for Europe.

Hildesheim’s particular tasks are to delve into the subjects of decolonial perspectives, diversity of knowledges and different meanings of cultural literacy.

 

Our objectives in d@rts:

  1. To develop an analytical framework that engages other work packages with decolonial perspectives.
  2. To define key terms and concepts that inform other work packages awareness of decoloniality.
  3. To post questions that may disrupt universal assumptions regarding arts curriculum, cultural policies, pedagogies, social inclusion and cohesion.
  4. To promote decolonial reflection.

 

All consortium partners and countries taking part in the project:

 

Social Media links:

Website: https://dialoguingarts.eu/  

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialoguing-rts-d-rts/

EU Project Link: cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101132352