dialoguing@rts – Advancing Cultural Literacy for Social Inclusion through Dialogical Arts Education

Arts and culture can bring people together, and schools and community initiatives can play a key role in this. For instance, participatory arts activities can develop both cognitive and emotional skills, helping people engage meaningfully with society. Promoting cultural literacy is essential. With this in mind, the EU-funded d@rts project aims to increase social cohesion and inclusion using embodied performing arts. Specifically, it will work with actors of all ages, especially in schools and community arts, to empower participants to engage creatively and culturally. The project develops dialogue-based activities, assessments and recommendations for cultural and educational policies. Overall, d@rts strengthens cultural literacy and social cohesion across Europe. 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.