I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT – The Big Linz09 School Project
Linz09 in the Future“Fire Up the Faculty”
What’s school going to be like in the future? Perhaps like a model being launched by Linz09 in cooperation with Upper Austrian teachers and principals as well as artists from Austria and around the world. This will be the first time that a project so broad in scope involving the performing arts in schools is being attempted in Austria. All types of schools throughout the Province of Upper Austria are participating in I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT. But the accent isn’t only on dance and theater; it’s also on the schools, the students and the teachers themselves.
In Spring 2009, nationally and internationally renowned choreographers, directors, actors, performers and teachers in many regions of the Province of Upper Austria will be working with over 2,000 students and launching a process of change at their schools. The focus will be on joyous, enthusiastic engagement in artistic work and all participants’ wholehearted commitment to an artistic process whose outcome is very much up in the air. Live performances can be a part of this project, but they are by no means mandatory. Ideas and models will be set in motion and, ideally, carried on to continue to encourage and strengthen the people of this school system—young and old alike.
For instance: six choreographers and performers will be spending eight weeks in Gmunden and the Salzkammergut region. A Turkish director will be working together with students for several weeks in and around the city of Steyr. A South African choreographer will be producing projects with students in Linz and vicinity.
What We’ll Need Tomorrow.
Kids attending elementary school today will be retiring at around 2060. No one can predict now what the world in which they’ll work is actually going to be like, but, in addition to information and facts, what they’re definitely going to need as adults are self-confidence and creativity. These qualities have to be aroused, fostered and sustained.
Physicality.
Most children have difficulty sitting still when they’re studying. The key to creativity is movement! This has been demonstrated by the results of the PISA Study, in which schools that offer enriched theater programs—for example, Wiesbaden, Germany—perform much better than average. Physical movement also enhances fitness for logical and mathematical thinking. At the same time, theatrical and dance performances help students learn to assume responsibility—for their own grades as well as for the results of their collaborative work. They discover how to create successes that are not based exclusively on seeing things in terms of individual output.
Skills.
The school can create a space for joint efforts, teamwork and mutual support. Artists can help in viewing society and reality from different perspectives. Students’ encounters with complex, multi-layered forms of expression and their confrontation with their own physicality help them to overcome fears and to discover articulation possibilities, enhance self-confidence, flexibility and the capacity to assume personal responsibility, and enable youngsters to acquire social skills—all of which are in great demand by employers.
The Model.
Partnership and dialogue are the prime considerations, not who’s going to be the star of the show. The entire project involves work by teams: each of 32 artist teams (consisting of a choreographer, director or performer; a partner or assistant; and a volunteer) will be working together with a teacher team (consisting of at least two pedagogues) at the respective schools. The volunteer program will be organized at a continuing professional education seminar for young teachers or artists. A third of the artistic protagonists live in Austria, a third have strong connections to Upper Austria, and a third are invited guests from abroad. All are experienced, internationally successful, contemporary artists.
The Title is Up to You.
Processuality and interaction were also called for in the selection of the project’s title. It was chosen by the protagonists themselves (students, teachers and artists), who could vote for their favorites at the Linz09 website. The choices were:
- „Das geht ja gar nicht!“
- Gemma.Spüma.Glei
- Go. Act.Now
- I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT
- Kiwischl
- Nicht genügend
- Play!
- Shakeschool
- Voi durchdraht
- XTRA.KLASSE
A total of 1,239 ballots were cast. The winner, with 31.8% of the vote, was “I like to move it, move it!”
There are three basic types of projects:
1. Performance-oriented Projects – Type A
The artist team works together with one class at a particular school seven weeks long during the 2008-09 school year, with two four-hour sessions per week lined up during regular school hours. Each respective school will determine the time slot: for instance, German, phys-ed and French could be scheduled in an uninterrupted sequence (block) and earmarked for project work.
The eighth week is strictly a project week during which there’ll be no regular instruction; the students will work intensively on finalizing their performance—ideally to be presented at a local theater or, for that matter, in a mysterious tower, on a river embankment or in the village hall.
2. Process-oriented Projects – Type B
Parallel to the performance-oriented project, the artist team will be working for seven weeks at a second school on a process-oriented project (without a project week). At the end of this process, a showing for colleagues or a live audience can take place.
3. Continuing Professional Education-oriented Projects – Type C
The artist teams will also be offering faculty members CPE units in a variety of different formats—for example, weekly evening workshops. These offerings are designed first and foremost for elementary school teachers. The aim here is to impart knowledge and experience about physicality to the teachers as well as to encourage them to work with kids in this way and to show teachers what a pleasure this can be.
Additional offerings from Linz09:
Fire Up the Faculty!
In Types A and B, additional workshops will be offered for the entire faculty of a particular school.
“Miss-Take”:
In cooperation with media classes, students will document the theatrical works themselves and produce short films on the subject of making mistakes. These clips will be posted online to make them publicly accessible.
In cooperation with Ars Electronica.
Wrap-up Symposium:
The highpoint of scholarly efforts accompanying “I like to move it, move it! – The Big Linz09 School Project” is the concluding symposium. Experts in the field from Austria and other countries will be analyzing the project and elaborating on the theoretical background. This symposium will provide a forum for sharing experiences and networking. It is also meant as a sign of sustainability and a signal to carry on this effort to increasingly integrate the performing arts into school instruction. Over the longer term, this unique initiative ought to serve as a model for other Austrian provinces.
Border-crossing Role Model.
Linz09 is coordinating and financing the work of the artists, getting schools and classes linked up in networks, and taking advantage of the unique opportunity afforded by this concept to launch and encourage a process of sustainable development in the school system throughout the Province of Upper Austria and far beyond the borders of Linz.
Esteem.
In addition to sustainability, reciprocal esteem on the part of students, faculty members and artists is the aim of this project: to transform the disdain that’s usually accorded to the school system into high regard, and to get a positive feedback loop flowing among children, parents and teachers.
Cooperating Institutions
Anton Bruckner Private University
Ars Electronica Center
KulturKontakt Austria
Theater des Kindes Linz
Schäxpir
Verein Zündstoff
Wirtschaftskammer Oberösterreich
u\hof
Media Partner
Kronenzeitung Oberösterreich
Under the Auspices of
HYPO Oberösterreich, MCE AG, Asamer Holding Ag, Bosch Rexroth GmbH
Greiner Group, HALI Büromöbel GmbH and Rosenbauer
With Support from
Finadvice, SLR-Gußwerk II BetriebsGmbH and Schöfer GmbH
