Little Citizens Choir - singing citizenship (Coro dos Pequenos Cidadãos - cantar a cidadania)
Singing is an inclusive and economical way of combating the disintegration of communities and providing the well-being of individuals. With the project Little Citizens Choir - singing citizenship, it was intended to create something in which education for citizenship would be a practical and dynamic process exploring different fundamental thematics for the construction of a civic, democratic and environmental awareness through musical expression, the visual arts, the story and the symbolic game.
Local
Portugal
Alumieira/Esgueira, in Aveiro (PORTUGAL)
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
EEA Grants - Active Citizens Fund Portugal.
Outcome 1 - Strengthened democratic culture and civic awareness.
Year: 2020/2021.
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Associação Arte no Tempo Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Matilde Last name of representative: Andrade Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Executive Producer and music educator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: R. Padre Manuel Marques Ferreira, D19 - 1º Esq Town: Aveiro Postal code: 3800-088 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 969 632 160 E-mail:matildeandrade@artenotempo.pt Website:https://artenotempo.pt/
URL:https://www.facebook.com/arte.notempo/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @arte.notempo #artenotempo #corodospequenoscidadãos #littlecitizenschoir
URL:https://www.instagram.com/arte.no.tempo Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @arte.no.tempo #artenotempo #corodospequenoscidadãos #littlecitizenschoir
Singing is an inclusive and economical way of combating the disintegration of communities and providing the well-being of individuals. It is an intrinsically social activity, involving processes of cooperation and social coordination, fundamental values to strengthen democratic culture and civic consciousness. The Citizens Choir believes that Citizenship is not simply learned by rhetorical processes, by transmissive teaching, but by living processes. Its central objective was the promotion of democratic culture and civic and environmental consciousness. The specific objectives were the development of personal and social skills; the promotion of critical thinking; the development of active participation skills; and the presentation to the community of an artistic piece. It was intended to create something in which education for citizenship would be a practical and dynamic process exploring different fundamental thematics for the construction of a civic, democratic and environmental awareness through musical expression, the visual arts, the story and the symbolic game. A plan was drawn up with semanal work music and citizenship sessions with a group of children from a school in Aveiro, always keeping the perspective of building a single project: an original show for children's choir and electronics, whose basis would be a text that reflected the themes addressed, created by the children and then worked on by a Portuguese music composer. Having identified a school community with problematic characteristics, in terms of family, social and economic context, it was intended to work with children in order to contribute to the formation of more autonomous, more responsible citizens, with a democratic sense, capable of putting themselves in the other’s place, aware of their duties and rights and capable of dialoguing with their environment. At the end, the work developed was presented to the community in a scenic concert at the Aveiro Congress Center.
Promotion of democratic culture and civic consciousness.
Promotion of environmental awareness.
Promotion of critical thinking.
Development of active participation skills.
Create and present an artistic piece.
Singing (and group singing) is one of the most ancient, inclusive and affordable forms of artistic expression. Feeling part of a group has been fundamental to the survival and evolution of the human species. But being part of a group is a challenge because it requires, among other things, developing the ability to manage conflicts between peers and for resources. In order to survive, our ancestors found ways to overcome these issues while maintaining the unity of the group. The practice of choral singing has been associated with a set of short, medium and long-term benefits in terms of well-being and social inclusion that underline the capacity that this initiative has in terms of sustainability, since, once the results and work methodologies are known, this project easily gains a dimension of continuity and/or gives rise to other similar projects. We believe that this type of initiative has an extraordinary potential for growth and a high degree of replicability that guarantees its sustainability, including in other moments and contexts. On the other hand, the dissemination of the project’s results, like the final show, enables the concepts, concerns and results of the project to reach a much larger number of participants and to increase the repercussion of the expected results, which survive beyond the implementation of the project. Within Arte no Tempo, the musical piece that resulted as the final product is part of the series of pieces “cAnTar” - a series of pieces by Portuguese composers for children’s choir and electronics. This context allows framing the project in one of the lines of action of our artistic regular work and opens doors to its sustainability and the possibility of new pieces being commissioned to integrate “cAnTar” and give rise to new similar projects. Finally, the good close relationship that we have maintained with our local partners, particularly schools, allows us to guarantee the sustainability of the project’s implementation in schools.
The Little Citizens Choir took to the Alumieira school the possibility to put the children in contact with 2 external educators and 1 music composer who works with specific areas (citizenship and contemporary music/visual arts) and who come with the proposal to use their work in the service of a transdisciplinary form of education. We believe that this experience and the goal of creating a collaborative artistic process has brought to these children and their teachers a priceless educational, human, social, cultural and artistic experience. Besides the experience and the consequences in the personal formation of each participant (the children, the teachers, and all school community and the families), from the project resulted some tangible and intangible products with aesthetics relevance that were a cultural brand experience and that can also play the role of a record for future memory. One of the objectives of the project that was also the motor of the initiative was the final show, a scenic concert that happened in Aveiro. To present on this occasion an original show with songs for children's choir and electronics was created from the work done with the children during the year. These songs were composed by the Portuguese composer Mariana Vieira and she used all the inputs the children gave her, through the mediation of the external teachers. The song libretto was elaborated and illustrated by the children and talks about citizenship and environmental awareness issues. This libretto was published as a book and the score of the songs was published in the score series “cAnTar” by Arte no Tempo. The final show created also had a scenario and costumes made by the children, with the precious collaboration of the entire school community and families. Aesthetically, this artistic experience was very relevant for the children and put them in direct contact with contemporary artistic creation, allowing them to be part of it, which increased the quality of the experience.
The target audience of the project was a school public between 6 and 10 years old, coming from the school of Alumieira, who has been identified as a school community with problematic characteristics, in terms of family, social and economic context and cultural accessibility. For this reason, our inclusion concerns are mainly related to the accessibility to cultural/artistic manifestations and their creation processes, as well as to the inclusion of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in extra-curricular educational projects with a public presentation dimension open to the entire city. These issues of accessibility to artistic manifestations and processes were also discussed and worked on with children throughout the year, especially through the question “what do we want say about the world and how we can do it through artistic creation?”. It was from the reflection on these themes, together with an awareness of musical expression, that the themes related to environmental sustainability and the relationship with others and with nature that gave rise to the lyrics of the songs (libretto) were worked on. Another objective of the project was to contribute to democratising access to music teaching and artistic education which hardly has space in peripheral schools. We believe that we have thus contributed to bringing these students, in terms of artistic experience, closer to students from more favoured contexts with access to specialised musical education. Finally, one of the goals of this project was also to offer empowerment tools to this community, so that they themselves can play an active role in society. The relevance of this work was also manifested in the growing support and recognition of the families, who facilitated the whole process (even the sessions that had to take place in an e-learning regime due to the pandemic and that demanded a great effort from the students with fewer resources) and filled the auditorium on the day of the final show.
The children of Alumieira school were always the central element of the project and were an active part of its entire development. The design of the project was first made by Arte no Tempo and was adapted by the 2 educators and the composer who were invited to implement it. But throughout its development the children’s inputs and the school’s context was crucial and often changed the course of the project. The plan were adapted to the circumstances and the children’s needs as well as to their contributions, both in terms of citizenship education and musical expression. In the citizenship sessions, after the planned contents had been worked on, the students were the authors of the lyrics of the songs that were to be composed and sung by them. In the music sessions, after the initial sessions on raising awareness of contemporary music and promoting active listening, the children experimented with various vocal and choral techniques and chose some of the sound effects they liked best for the composer to use in the songs. This actions were essential for the sense of belonging and empowerment of the children - they were being part of the construction of a musical piece that they were going to present on stage, with their own voice and their own ideas. After these experimental materials were sent to the composer and worked by her until they became real songs, the children started to rehearse together as a real choir. In the final phase, the children were also fundamental in the construction of the show with their contributions of ideas for the staging and the construction of the scenery and costumes. Here too the families and the whole school community helped a lot, directly involving even more people in this whole process. So these children were involved in the project as part of an extra-curricular action supported by the school and, by having such a central role in their development, they quickly took ownership of it and got involved with all the commitment they could.
We consider that this project had an impact mainly at local level and that was its aim. However, there were different partners in the project also at regional, national and European level. The project relied on 2 fundamental local partnerships: the Esgueira school grouping, to which the Aumieira school belongs; and the Aveiro Music Conservatory (which ended up receiving the project only in a second phase). At first, the project also included the participation of an identical group of students from the Aveiro Conservatory of Music, and the final show was to have taken place as part of a biennial of contemporary music promoted by Arte no Tempo at the Aveirense Theatre. This scenario would increase the impact of the cultural and artistic accessibility that we envisage, both in terms of the process and the presentation, since we would join a group of students with access to specialized musical training (Conservatory) to a group that doesn’t have this opportunity (Alumieira), which would enrich the whole experience. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible due to the constraints of the pandemic through Covid-19, which didn’t allow us to gather so many children in the same space. Another fundamental local/regional partner was the Aveiro Municipal Council which, even though it was not possible to present the final show at the municipal Theatre, offered all the logistical and technical conditions to present it at the Congress Centre, which allowed an identical artistic experience for all the children and families. Finally, the project also had national and European partners trough the EEA Grants Active Citizens Fund programme, wich in Portugal is managed by the Bissaya Barreto Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Our project was funded by this programme under the axis “Strengthened democratic culture and civic awareness” and we were always accompanied by a support team that helped us in the implementation of the project and also allowed us to empower our team.
The main disciplines of knowledge that were reflected in the design/implementation of this project were citizenship and music, whose contents and skills were mixed throughout the process following an inter and transdisciplinary work methodology and promoting a project learning model, which brought an added value to the initiative. Thus, this initiative also involved knowledge and skills development (of the team and the children) in terms of project design/implementation/evaluation, team management, working together and collaborative and cooperative work, promoting an education and active learning centred not only on the student but also on the collective. The practice of citizenship is a participatory process, individual and collective, which requires reflection and action on the problems experienced by each one and society in general. Viewing citizenship as an educational process, the sessions of citizenship contributed to the development of a sense of responsibility, autonomy, and solidarity in the children, who began to know and exercise their rights and duties through dialogue and respect for others, with critical thinking and creative spirit. The music sessions were essential for the application of civic tools, taking the choir as a small collective that functioned here as a laboratory of citizenship. As stated in the Portuguese National Plan for Citizenship, school, as a safe learning space, provides an important context for learning and exercising citizenship and reflects concerns that are also important for society and involve different dimensions of Citizenship Education - human rights education, sustainable development, gender equality education, intercultural education, development education, etc. In this project, the product that resulted from these work focused essentially on issues of environmental sustainability and interaction with nature, and was presented to the community as a show that managed to unite all the disciplines involved.
We believe that the innovative character of this initiative lies in the possibility of co-creation of a musical work and a scenic concert between the children and the educational/artistic team (the composer; the citizenship educator who was also scenographer, book/libretto designer and co-stage director; and the music educator who was also conductor and co-stage director). In addition, the libretto and the score of the musical work were edited and published by Arte no Tempo, documents that offer a deserved recognition to the work of these children and don’t allow the project to be exhausted in its implementation at school. The project was also innovative on an artistic level, for working with children on a contemporary musical aesthetic (from the classical tradition) that is still not very widespread and accessible to this public. Our objective was to bring to school the music that we usually work with and whose access we want to democratize, without ever undermining the reception capacity of children to this type of music. The music composed and worked on in this project was made with and for children, but it is not children’s music - it is music that uses elements such as electronic/electroacoustic and contemporary musical aesthetics in consonance with the most recent contemporary artistic creation. We believe that bringing children closer to these contemporary artistic aesthetics is also fundamental in their development process and offers them the possibility to look at the world from a new range of possibilities, and this is also innovative. Perhaps the true innovative character of this project also lies in the courage of wanting to empower these children who were able to be artists here and express their vision of the world, even knowing that the artistic result would not be as exemplary as if it were performed exclusively by children with specialized music education, but with the certainty that in this way it achieved a much more relevant social value.
We consider this project fully replicable and transferable in other contexts, allowing for the formation of much more little great citizens. This is possible by replicating the project from the beginning and implementing the whole process with a new group of children and a new artistic team that includes a composer (or possibly the same artistic team) and creating a new musical work; or by using the musical work published as didactic work material with a new group of children, with an eventually smaller team. With the existence of a published score/libretto, the work composed can be worked in different contexts. For schools, the score will be accompanied by a small pedagogical guide which will help teachers to approach the citizenship themes to be worked on in each song. There is a potential of use the work in different contexts that allows the continuity of the project in a new dimension. In 2022, the group of students from the Aveiro Music Conservatory who couldn’t participate in the initial project in 2020/2021 had the opportunity to work on this musical piece, presenting it in concert at the biennial of electroacoustic music Aveiro_Síntese, promoted by Arte no Tempo at the Aveirense Theatre. This is a good example of the adaptation of the project and also brought the possibility for some of the children who took part in the original project to see the musical work they had co-created being interpreted and performed by other children. Once the mechanisms and methodologies have been assimilated and the essential equipment is available, Arte no Tempo will easily be able to continue this project as part of its regular activities. We recognise the extraordinary potential for growth that this type of initiative has and the high degree of replicability tat it presents, in other institutions and in other contexts (for example, with vulnerable groups, with senior citizens, etc), which increases the added value produced by the project in the medium and long term.
The project was developed between October 2020 and June 2021. At first, the working sessions on music and citizenship took place separately and functioned as spaces of awareness and discussion on the contents programmed, giving rise to the materials that were sent to the composer. All the work was based on active learning methodologies, looking at the external teacher as a mentor. The citizenship education work was mostly focused on addressing the expected themes (diversity; family/families; social inequalities; rights and duties; environmental literacy; gender inequality; environment and animals; volunteering), through debates, dynamics and games. The musical expression work was mostly exploratory in terms of vocal and body expression, while at the same time, awareness and listening skills were worked on. The period from January to March 2021 was crossed by a new confinement because of the pandemic, forcing to work in an e-learning regime with the platforms Zoom and Edmodo. Here, the strategies of watching short films and using plastic language to explore the themes, either as illustration or as a starting point for reflection, became more important. In musical expression, the work of learning songs began which was carried out with the use of videos. From April on, with the return to the school, the work began to be developed in a more articulated way and even simultaneously. This integration even implied the joining of classes, for collective work, both in the choral dimension and in the plastic dimension in the construction of the scenery and costumes. In June, the classes went on their first visit to the place where the show would be presented, where there were 2 rehearsals. Finally, in the presence of families and community representatives, the work developed was presented. In parallel, the invisible work of reflection and articulated discussion was developed between those responsible for the implementation of the project and the school grouping.
The initiative addresses global challenges related to civid and environmental awareness, the protection and respect for nature and the civic and active participation of citizens in defending these values in civil society and institutions. Bearing in mind that the younger generations will be those who in the near future will have to work hardest to find solutions to these challenges, we believe that the best contribution we can offer is to empower them through education. So, the local solution that this project proposes is the empowerment of these children in terms of civid and environmental awareness, providing them with a space and tools of expression through the arts that allow them to make their voices heard as active citizens. Through this voice and this artistic product that they have co-created, we believe they are also contributing to the awareness of their local community to these challenges. If all small communities in the world begin to think critically about these issues, they can start to create strategies to minimise the problems and impacts of our existence on and in relation to nature and these generations will be able to face global challenges with much greater preparedness and ability to succeed. At the same time, these children, besides being more aware of the global environmental challenges we face, are also more capable and confident to demand solutions from governmental and corporate institutions, actively fighting for the quality of their future. Finally, citizenship education also contributes to a better management of human relations and the importance of respecting the other in his or her integrity, which allows these children to increase their awareness and their ability to dialogue with difference, without being tempted to extermine their civic and political positions.
The project “Little Citizens Choir” is already finished. At the end of the project, a questionnaire was prepared to measure the impact of the initiative on the children. After the presentation of the project there was an outbreak of Covid-19 in the school and the lessons were interrupted earlier than planned, so it was not possible to submit all the children participating in the project to complete the questionnaire. This leads to the analysis of the results being partially compromised. However, based on the questionnaires subsequently filed in by the children who stayed in school, we consider that the following objectives were achieved: promotion of democratic culture and civic awareness; development of personal and social skills; promotion of critical thinking; and development of active participation skills. The objective of presenting to the community an artistic product worked on collectively was also achieved and brought numerous benefits to all the participants, which we have already explained in the previous questions. Even though the project is essentially about citizenship, we applied for the “Reconnecting with nature” category because its most visible outcome is related to that subject. The libretto that the children wrote and sang in the final show is about our relationship with the world and with nature, and the maturity of the lyrics of the songs (with resulted from the citizenship work done in the project sessions) shows the very important results that the project had on this theme. The songs in the libretto are: 1. “There isn’t only one colour” (about the colours of the tree leaves, which represent diversity); 2. “Fall close to me” (about the rain and the sun); 3. “Have learnt” (about the right to education); 4. “Do you hug me?” (About difference); 5. “I want the blue back” (about the Earth and the preservation of the environment); 6. “We want a more equal world” (about gender equality).
