Performance Arts

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.” ~Gail Godwin

WHY performance arts?The kinesthetic arts improves:

Self-concept

Learning and cognition

Creativity

Social Skills

Emotional Intelligence

How Do Performing Arts Improve Self-Concept?

• Ability to express personal ideas without fear of censorship • Beauty of movement

• Skills of choreography

• Compositional structure, sequencing, collaboration skills, and interpretation

• Develop rhythm, coherence, and flow

• Refine technical skills including artistic problem-solving, time-space issues, emotional impact, and the logistics of production work.

How Do Performing Arts Improve Learning and Cognition?

• Dance can develop balance, which can improve reading skills

• Improves learning from

role-modeling, nonconscious acquisition, trail and error, experimentation, and peer demonstration

• Facilitates the maturation of the brain’s cortical systems.

• Reading, counting, speaking, and problem- solving are all maturation correlated.Kinesthetic arts activate far more brain areas than traditional

seatwork. National Institutes of Health say that when athletes achieve excellence in a sport, “they are probably using close to 100% of their

brain.”

How Do Performing Arts Improve Creativity?

• It empowers children

• There is a correlation between movement arts and higher college entrance scores

• It primes the brain

for new ideas and the will to carry them out.

• It can bring history,

math, literature, and social studies to life!

How Do Performing Arts Improve Social Skills?

• Young people have an opportunity to relate to the opposite sex in a nonthreatening setting that includes social discipline and emphasis on courtesy and consideration for others.

• It can break tension and help build community.

• Children learn how to interact with others in a structured setting, which provides a set of social markers for acceptable social behavior.

• Theater games and movement help children become less self-conscious in a safe environment.

How Do Performing Arts Improve Emotional Intelligence?

• Movement arts promote emotional and physical health.

• They produce “feel-good” chemicals in the brain (noradrenalin and dopamine) which improves

learning and well being!

• Children often think that, “the world happens to me.” This belief hinders their

self-efficacy,sense of empowerment, and it can lead to depression.

• Students who participate in the movement arts know that they have control over how they feel!