Case studies: Beyond the Campus
Body Stories: Queensland University of Technology & Widening Participation
The Body Stories project was funded by the Artist in Residence (AIR) program and the Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Widening Participation program.
The current iteration of Australian AIR program is sustained by a three-year partnership (2013-2015) between the Australia Council for the Arts and Australian State and Territory Education departments and arts agencies. In Queensland, this collaboration involves Arts Queensland and Education Queensland. The AIR program links creatives within the broader community with education providers. It aims to support projects that: a) generate innovative collaborative practice between all parties involved; b) develop students’ meta-capabilities and authentic disciplinary expertise; c) build evidence for the value of participation in arts practice for supporting core learning capabilities alongside discipline specific learning; and d) support the Australian Curriculum priorities. Without an understanding of interpersonal relationships, aesthetic practice and an underlying connectiveness with the community involved, the experience of AIR projects will be superficial at best. Successful AIR projects affect and resonate within communities long after the conclusion of the arts project. They require intense organisation, collaboration and personal investment by all parties involved and the positive outcomes of participation observed in these programs are broad and inclusive. Body Stories was an intergenerational multi-arts performance project connecting year 8 to 12 students from Tullawong State High School (SHS), Caboolture, with senior citizens from their regional community. It involved the exploration of the individual and the unique stories contained within, written on and about the body. |
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Presentation & PodcastListen to Avril Huddy, Lecturer in Dance at Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, who presented at our QUT research workshop in Brisbane or download her presentation: The University as community cultural broker: building strong vibrant communities by embedding arts practice into daily life.
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Being an 18 month project, preparation and planning for the project began in early 2012. Professional development (PD) activities were designed and delivered and mentoring activities initiated, in December 2012 for the Tullawong SHS Arts teachers and the Body Stories creative team. The creative investigation and development with the Tullawong SHS students and senior citizens occurred during Term 1: late Jan until the end of March 2013.
Body Stories was structured as a series of collaboratively facilitated workshops, engaging participant in story, dance, film, music composition and choreographic practice, and culminated in performances in local and city cultural venues. It provided 50 workshops ranging in length from one hour and ten minutes to four hours, in 3 different South East Queensland locations: Tullawong SHS Caboolture, QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus, and the Noosa Community centre. The project engaged over 100 Tullawong SHS students in Dance workshops, twenty-two year 11 and 12 students in music composition workshops and sixteen year 12 film and television students in documentary making workshops. Six senior citizens and twelve artists and academics were also involved in the project.
Body Stories was structured as a series of collaboratively facilitated workshops, engaging participant in story, dance, film, music composition and choreographic practice, and culminated in performances in local and city cultural venues. It provided 50 workshops ranging in length from one hour and ten minutes to four hours, in 3 different South East Queensland locations: Tullawong SHS Caboolture, QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus, and the Noosa Community centre. The project engaged over 100 Tullawong SHS students in Dance workshops, twenty-two year 11 and 12 students in music composition workshops and sixteen year 12 film and television students in documentary making workshops. Six senior citizens and twelve artists and academics were also involved in the project.
Interview with Avril Huddy, Lecturer in Dance at QUT Brisbane
How did you go about establishing a framework for collaborative work with your external partners? Please describe whether the negotiation process was hard or easy and whether it required specific skills / support?
The framework for the Body Stories project benefited from the application of knowledge garnered during the development and delivery of earlier community based dance projects. These learnings can be summarised as a list of essential elements required to facilitate successful AIR programs:
1. Appropriate partnerships
2. Expertise in aesthetic and education domains
3. Dynamic and rigorous investigation, development, evaluation, implementation processes
4. Realistic time frames
5. Project management and facilitation expertise
6. Administrative support and infrastructure
7. Community Cultural Brokerage
In establishing the Body Stories project, specific support of and from QUT Alumni was sought. The three key Tullawong State High School arts teachers involved in Body Stories were QUT alumni, as were the majority of the creative team. This shared history regarding understanding, language and experience, fast tracked the initial meet and greet processes and stimulated a collaborative approach.
Shared understandings and trust were vital to the success of this project. Relationships between the creative team and the Tullawong State High School arts teachers developed as a result of the PD and mentoring activities delivered in the lead-in to the project. During these activities, all staff completed a questionnaire regarding their background (i.e. educational and aesthetic), experience, interests, strengths and their current employment. This information was highly relevant when considering work processes and practices, allocation of tasks, responsibilities and collaborations.
Body Stories was the Tullawong State High School arts teachers’ first experience with an AIR program. As extremely hard working and diligent teachers, their modus operandi was to work at great pace, creating large quantities of high quality output, with little support from colleagues or school infrastructure. Initially, the thinking around this project by these teachers was that it would be an adjunct to their normal curriculum activities. It took considerable time to demonstrate and persuade these teachers that the project could in fact respond to and fulfill their curriculum requirements. PD activities were created and implemented to help illuminate the potential curriculum connections and collaborative opportunities.
These PD sessions proved highly valuable for both the arts teachers and the artists in the Body Stories creative team, as they clearly connected aesthetic practice with education outcomes. This knowledge and understanding additionally contributed to the artists’ development as teaching artists, and this shared learning formed the basis for fulfilling and successful collaborations. Reciprocity was fundamental to the process of creating and implementing the Body Stories project, as was the role of Community Cultural Broker. In this role, QUT acted as both the conduit connecting artists and arts teachers and as the arbiter of who, when and how connections were made (Long Lingo and O’Mahony, 2010: 79). This approach facilitated successful micro- and macro-collaborations.
A heuristic process was applied from the outset of the project, involving dynamic and rigorous investigation, development, evaluation and implementation processes. Additionally, a continuous cyclic practice of evaluation (input, needs, engagement and outcome), collaboration and implementation was established. The success of the project can be attributed to interactive facilitation, effective communication processes and collaborative dialogue. This extremely important process developed trust between participants, enabled collaboration, and built the foundations for ongoing connectivity between participants and within communities.
What do you see as the main challenges or obstacles in working with external partners
The main challenge for a University when working with external partners in AIR projects is to navigate its own bureaucracy. The well-established, highly structured administrative infrastructure can often appear unwieldy to the uninitiated. There needs to be clear alignment between internal protocols and procedures, and the requirements of external partners to ensure ease and timely facilitation of these types of projects. Knowledge of, and access to complex University systems, protocols, and staff with appropriate knowledge and experience can be difficult, leading to frustration and the unnecessary task of reinventing the wheel with each new project, instead of improving productivity by condensing and speeding up processes.
What do you see as the main advantages/disadvantages in working with external partners?
There are many advantages to working with external partners in the community cultural sector. Some of these include:
The framework for the Body Stories project benefited from the application of knowledge garnered during the development and delivery of earlier community based dance projects. These learnings can be summarised as a list of essential elements required to facilitate successful AIR programs:
1. Appropriate partnerships
2. Expertise in aesthetic and education domains
3. Dynamic and rigorous investigation, development, evaluation, implementation processes
4. Realistic time frames
5. Project management and facilitation expertise
6. Administrative support and infrastructure
7. Community Cultural Brokerage
In establishing the Body Stories project, specific support of and from QUT Alumni was sought. The three key Tullawong State High School arts teachers involved in Body Stories were QUT alumni, as were the majority of the creative team. This shared history regarding understanding, language and experience, fast tracked the initial meet and greet processes and stimulated a collaborative approach.
Shared understandings and trust were vital to the success of this project. Relationships between the creative team and the Tullawong State High School arts teachers developed as a result of the PD and mentoring activities delivered in the lead-in to the project. During these activities, all staff completed a questionnaire regarding their background (i.e. educational and aesthetic), experience, interests, strengths and their current employment. This information was highly relevant when considering work processes and practices, allocation of tasks, responsibilities and collaborations.
Body Stories was the Tullawong State High School arts teachers’ first experience with an AIR program. As extremely hard working and diligent teachers, their modus operandi was to work at great pace, creating large quantities of high quality output, with little support from colleagues or school infrastructure. Initially, the thinking around this project by these teachers was that it would be an adjunct to their normal curriculum activities. It took considerable time to demonstrate and persuade these teachers that the project could in fact respond to and fulfill their curriculum requirements. PD activities were created and implemented to help illuminate the potential curriculum connections and collaborative opportunities.
These PD sessions proved highly valuable for both the arts teachers and the artists in the Body Stories creative team, as they clearly connected aesthetic practice with education outcomes. This knowledge and understanding additionally contributed to the artists’ development as teaching artists, and this shared learning formed the basis for fulfilling and successful collaborations. Reciprocity was fundamental to the process of creating and implementing the Body Stories project, as was the role of Community Cultural Broker. In this role, QUT acted as both the conduit connecting artists and arts teachers and as the arbiter of who, when and how connections were made (Long Lingo and O’Mahony, 2010: 79). This approach facilitated successful micro- and macro-collaborations.
A heuristic process was applied from the outset of the project, involving dynamic and rigorous investigation, development, evaluation and implementation processes. Additionally, a continuous cyclic practice of evaluation (input, needs, engagement and outcome), collaboration and implementation was established. The success of the project can be attributed to interactive facilitation, effective communication processes and collaborative dialogue. This extremely important process developed trust between participants, enabled collaboration, and built the foundations for ongoing connectivity between participants and within communities.
What do you see as the main challenges or obstacles in working with external partners
The main challenge for a University when working with external partners in AIR projects is to navigate its own bureaucracy. The well-established, highly structured administrative infrastructure can often appear unwieldy to the uninitiated. There needs to be clear alignment between internal protocols and procedures, and the requirements of external partners to ensure ease and timely facilitation of these types of projects. Knowledge of, and access to complex University systems, protocols, and staff with appropriate knowledge and experience can be difficult, leading to frustration and the unnecessary task of reinventing the wheel with each new project, instead of improving productivity by condensing and speeding up processes.
What do you see as the main advantages/disadvantages in working with external partners?
There are many advantages to working with external partners in the community cultural sector. Some of these include:
- Currency and relevance in industry trends and practices: Currency in industry trends and practices is paramount to a University’s ability to attract industry partners, staff, students, researchers, and funding. The students, school and University are typically viewed as the primary beneficiaries of these types of projects. However, as seen in the Body Stories project, if developed and implemented appropriately, these projects provide deep learning for all involved: students, school personal, artists and academics.
- Best practice in authentic learning models and teaching theory and practice expertise: QUT is committed to the development of rich student-centred learning that situates the learner in close proximity to their chosen field of employment. These ‘real-world’ authentic learning contexts form the nexus between theory and practice. These approaches bode well for University led community cultural programs as they promote co-creative teaching and learning environments. Projects of this nature influence University teaching and learning programs and curriculum development; promoting student self-identification within the broader field, driving skill acquisition, self-efficacy, meaning making and creative agency while also enhancing student employability.
- Industry partnerships: Partnerships in this sector facilitate successful AIR projects through access to new or different networks, infrastructure, knowledge, and protocol. They inform University curriculum and pedagogy, lead to ongoing research, provide authentic learning sites, broaden the University’s reach and influence and emphasizes the power of dance through a social justice philosophy.
- Leadership through practice and research: With research agendas and Key Performance Indicators now part of academic vernacular, the imperative for many University academics is to turn their creative outputs into research. Consolidation and expansion of research in education and creative industries is identified in the QUT Blueprint 3, as a major research development area. This bodes well for the continued facilitation of University brokered AIR projects.
- Effective dissemination: AIR projects provide a platform for artists, researchers and academics to present, develop, reflect and evaluate relevant concepts, ideas and theories. These projects provide the perfect vehicle for putting theory into practice and sharing knowledge.