Since around 2000 in Japan, the research trend connecting art with education has developed sharply in the sphere of the theoretical approach to education. Symposiums discussing the relationship between aesthetics and human formation have been held,1 and books on aesthetic education and art and education have been published by philosophers of education (Sato & Imai, 2003; Imai & Wulf, 2007). The aesthetic was a focus of discussion in postmodern educational science. Although Japanese educational research has been inspired by Western thought on aesthetics and education, it has not only introduced this thinking, but also questioned the relationship between aesthetics and education in the context of redefining modern educational thought (Nishimura, 2010, pp. 97-98).
Regarding research into art education, after World War II several societies were established, which have worked vigorously on theoretical and practical research. Notwithstanding their common interest in art and education, there has been hardly any interaction between those societies chiefly connected with teacher training colleges and the trend promoted by philosophers of education. In addition, societies researching visual art education, music education, and theater education developed separately. It seems that research on art education, concentrating on schools, progressed independently from other disciplines, which leads to various gaps, such as between art education and that of other subjects, art education in school and that in society, and art teacher and artist.
Another gap lies between artistic practice and academic research. In Japan most artists are trained at specialized art colleges, and the education there focuses on practical learning of artistic skills rather than academic research. Few universities have departments of art. Of course, the curriculum of liberal education includes subjects relating to the arts, however, lectures tend to be mainly on art theory or art history, rather than artistic practice. This situation also leads to a widening gap between art college and general university, artistic practice and academic inquiry, and artist and researcher.
Given this situation, it is strange that Japan was one of the first countries to develop a PhD program in practical arts, as James Elkins points out with surprise (Elkins, 2014, p. 12). Having researched the academic situations of various countries to examine new degree systems for artists to obtain a PhD, he suggested that the pioneering Japanese model followed its own path and was not connected to the international research movement.2
In recent times, this situation has changed. Some researchers are consciously involved in fusing art into education and research. This volume is based on the following three new trends around art and education: (1) the development of Arts-Based Research in Japan since its introduction from abroad; (2) the introduction of art practice into academic research in various disciplines and diverse educational settings; (3) the new trend in drama education and theatrical performance in Japan.
Firstly, Arts-Based Research (ABR) in the research field of art education was developed in the decade from 2010. ABR was proposed by the well-known researcher E. W. Eisner, competing with the evidence-based research of the 1990’s. It “utilizes aesthetic judgment and the application of aesthetic criteria in making judgments,” through which we deepen and make more complex our understanding of some aspect of the world (Barone & Eisner, 2012, pp. 3, 8). Eisner regarded schooling itself as a cultural artifact and teaching as an activity requiring artistry, so the connoisseurship and criticism acquired by an art critic are required for educational evaluation (Eisner, 1976, p. 140). He said that research into education, and likewise perceiving and appreciating the important qualities of educational artifacts, requires educational criticism (Barone & Eisner, 1997, p. 80).
Although some Japanese researchers have committed to ABR inspired by the international research trend, ABR has not yet become well known in the Japanese academic world. Chapters 1 to 4 of this volume are written by pioneers who have struggled to introduce ABR into Japan, each from their own standpoint. Now ABR in Japan is advancing from the introduction of the research trend from abroad to presenting original research results based on the accumulated practices of recent years.
Chapter 1, ‘Art = Research: Inquiry in Creative Practice’ is co-authored by theoretical researcher Kayoko Komatsu and an artist who makes sculpture, Ryoji Namai. Komatsu has been promoting ABR in collaboration with artists since 2014. While most ABR attends to issues other than art utilizing artistic practice, the authors, who graduated from and work at art college, consider what art is through art, even though this may seem to be tautological. After reviewing several ways of connecting art to research, the authors propose their unique standpoint of seeking intertwinement of art and research, which is represented by connecting the two concepts with an equals sign. The artist is involved in incessant inquiry into the process of creative practice. Without deepening the inquiry into practice, the research of artists cannot be profound. Although it is difficult to capture the inquiry into art-making as discourse, and even more so to equate it to research, this chapter challenges the revealing of consciousness and the transformation of the self through the process of creative practice with, alternately, the artist’s internal reflection in action and the theoretical researcher’s understanding of it. This diffused reflection makes both art and research progress at the same time. This is a unique method of ABR that is different from previous studies.
Chapter 2, ‘Arts-Based Research Practices in Sociology: Undergraduate and Graduate Degree Education’ is written by Masayuki Okahara and his doctoral student Prusakova Alena, of Keio University. To approach the lived emotions of people, Okahara had to find “a way to make the human being as whole and alive as possible.” Based on this awareness, he engaged in theatrical sociology and sociology of emotion. However, he realized that social sciences overlooked the emotions of sociologists, even those who were researching emotions. This is why his research progressed to emotional sociology and along this path to ABR. Currently his group at Keio University is the only one in Japan in the field of sociology that carries out education and research under the banner of ABR. Regarding all of sociology’s activities as performative, he has been practicing his undergraduate and graduate classes, some examples of which are introduced in this chapter. As shown in these examples and the master and doctoral theses of the members of his group, the output of their research, like the research processes, is in various forms, such as video and sound installations. While at first glance their activities seem similar to socially engaged arts, their approaches are endorsed by sociological method, so their arts-based sociology can be seen as an academic movement contrasting with the accepted academic format of research, and artistic performances.
Chapter 3, ‘What Arts-Based Research and A/r/tography Allow for Art Education in Teacher Training and Education in Japan’ is written by Koichi Kasahara, who is a front-runner in the practice of ABR and especially a/r/tography in the field of teacher training courses. A/r/tography is a hybridized term of a/r/t and graphy, which means description. The slashes in a/r/t represent the complex and entangled identity of the inquirer as an artist/researcher/teacher (-practitioner) who is engaged in arts-based living inquiry. In recent times, Kasahara, in collaboration with many researchers and practitioners at home and abroad, has practiced ABR and a/r/tography in teacher training courses of graduate schools, elementary schools, and kindergartens. This chapter introduces these practices, as well as theories relating to a/r/tography to explain them. He aims to go beyond the existing dualistic framework of empiricism and systematism in Japanese art education and to explore a third direction different from the above, that is, the arts-based approach and a/r/tography, which integrate knowledge and experience. His practices indicate that arts-based inquiries cannot seek pre-existing meaning but create generative possibilities. This is very different from the guidelines of school curricula, which are managed by objectives, even in art education. Crossing over the different stages of art education, he suggests every student and child can be an inquirer. From the viewpoint of living inquiry, art education in school and teacher training share a common potential for development, which leads to the reconstruction of art education in Japan.
Chapter 4, ‘ABR by Learners in Liberal Arts: A Case Study of Artist Eiko Otake’s “Delicious Movement,”’ written by Yuka Hayashi and Takeshi Okada, extends ABR to design principles of teaching. Beyond both art education aiming at the acquisition of skills for specialists and arts-based education utilizing arts as a means of problem-solving, such as through science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), they propose a type of education in which students themselves experience the process of Arts-Based Research. In this new framework, named “ABR by Learners,” learners become practitioners of ABR, and the practice of ABR itself is their way of learning and inquiry. As an example of ABR by Learners, they scrutinize the artist Eiko Otake’s workshop on liberal arts education, “Delicious Movement.” Based on Schön’s (1983) “reflection in action” and “reflection on action,” they suggest that students’ inquiries are developed through repetition of the cycles of action and reflection through ABR by Learners. The students’ journals, the results of post-interviews with some of the students, and the results of an interview with Eiko, as well as audio and video recordings of the classes and field notes taken during the classes, are treated as data to develop design principles for ABR by Learners which direct students’ inquiry. Focusing on learners’ experience in the exercises, this chapter clarifies that ABR by Learners is a way of inquiry in which the essence of art overlaps with the essence of research.
The second new trend is the introduction of art practice into academic research in various disciplines and diverse educational settings. In Japan, while art education is compulsory until the first grade of senior high school, most university students have few chances to connect with art practice because of the separation of art college from university. A start has been made on overcoming this problem at some universities, among which The University of Tokyo, the leading university in Japan, which in recent years has begun offering practical art courses for non-arts-major students. In May 2019, the university established the Art Center at the University of Tokyo (ACUT), through collaboration between seven of its graduate schools, as shown in Chapter 5. Chapters 5 and 7, as well as Chapter 4 in this volume, are based on the practices carried out as a part of the activities of ACUT and some pilot cases leading to the establishment of the center.
Chapter 5, ‘Exploring as an Artist: A Study of a Practical Arts Course for Non-Arts-Major Students at a Japanese University,’ written by Kikuko Takagi and Shijun Wang, describes one mission of ACUT, which delivers a practical arts course for non-arts-major students. The first author Takagi, who is a project assistant professor and committee member of ACUT, as well as a contemporary artist, after referring to the objectives of ACUT, examines the education through art practice exercised as an activity of ACUT, with a focus on visual art. Based on previous studies on creativity in psychology, she regards experts’ art creation as an activity for solving the ill-defined problem of searching for new knowledge through the process of creation. She suggests that it is important for learners to experience the sort of creative activity that artists engage in practically, and to use the creative process of artists to solve their own problems. Based on studies on the cognitive activities of contemporary artists, four perspectives are revealed, which are “process modification/slippage,” “utilization of the surprise caused by unexpected discoveries,” “similarity-based thinking,” and “inspiration.” As one of the courses established by ACUT, the educational practice for the creation of artwork for non-art-major students was planned and implemented on the basis of these perspectives, and it is scrutinized as a case study in this chapter. The course consists of a combination of lectures on cognitive psychology and knowledge science of creativity and the practical activities of art. This course connects experts in art and non-art-major students, lectures and practical work on art, and appreciation and creation. The students participating in this course found and solved their own problems in the creation of their artwork as artists, and this suggests the significance of introducing intellectual mechanisms in the creative process of art into higher education.
Chapter 6, ‘Constructing Design Guidelines for a Creation-focused Contemporary Dance Educational Program for Non-dance Majors,’ co-authored by Yuko Nakano and Takeshi Okada, is also based on a practical art course implemented at The University of Tokyo, but the course was held before the establishment of ACUT. The purpose of this chapter is to construct design guidelines for a contemporary dance educational program that enables non-dance major students to activate dance creation. Dance creation, which requires the sensation of the body and inner images and feelings, as well as interaction with the physical surroundings and other people, is supposed to contribute to the educational practice of creativity. Based on a dual-process model of contemporary dance creation, that is “Perception and Action” and “Action and Reflection,” they explore features of the design guidelines for educational content and the teacher’s role in a creation-focused contemporary dance education program. They take a design-based research (DBR) approach. DBR, which allows the flexibility to make adjustments through a continuous process of trial and error, is suitable for building both better art education and design guidelines for artistic creation. After investigating the creative cognition of expert contemporary dancers, they iterated educational practice and measurement of effect three times and elaborated their guidelines for the educational program. Constructing guidelines does not mean standardization. The teacher’s (artist’s) unique artistic philosophy is thought of as essential, but it can in turn be inspired by the participants’ expression. The design guidelines constructed through these multiple studies are called the “Discovering the Artist Within (DAW)” program.
Chapter 7, ‘Music-Based/Inspired Scientific Research and Liberal Arts Education’ is co-authored by a human movement scientist, Kazuhiko Kudo, and a professional vocal artist, Kiyomi Toyoda. After reviewing the position of music in human culture from the prehistoric age to the modern day, they refer to the connection between scientific research such as neuroscience and music performance. Based on the measurement of the difference of muscle activity between experts and novices of various genres of music, they find a clue for the improvement of performance from the viewpoint of sensorimotor skills. They also refer to experiments on the relationship between psychophysiological state and music performance, the possibilities of psychological intervention for promoting competence in music. They try to present an effective way of instruction for motor proficiency based on their own and other’s experiments, which examine the sensorimotor factors behind the music performance. Utilizing the outcome of this scientific research and the second author’s model of knowledge creation in classical music, they provided a specialized seminar at the University of Tokyo, which was also a part of the activities of ACUT. The purpose of this class was to improve singing ability through breathing, posture, and vocal training for students who were not specialized in music, and to cultivate sensitivity to the body. Along with physical training, lectures, and vocal and singing lesson, they recorded the students’ vocal waveforms and provide feedback on the visualized voice. Their approach demonstrates the complementary relationship between the science of music and music research and education.
While ACUT is an organized effort for combining art and intelligence through interdisciplinary activities, some other pioneering attempts at fusing art practice into education were made before it. Chapter 8, ‘Developing University Students’ Creativity through Participation in Art Projects,’ written by Takumitsu Agata and Shingo Jinno, depends on one practiced at Chiba University, which is the longest-running art project at a university other than at an art college. Since around 2000, art projects have been booming in Japan. Although this tide was inspired by the “social turn”3 seen on the Western art scene, it is said that the arts projects in Japan developed in a unique way. Politically or socially controversial issues were less emphasized than community building and collaboration between artists and residents, especially in rural areas. The most successful and famous example is the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale that started in 2000. The authors launched the Chiba Art Network Project (WiCAN), also in 2000, the activities of which are carried out in collaboration with the liberal arts curriculum of Chiba University, the Chiba City Museum of Art, elementary and junior high schools, and NPOs. The core of the project lies in the meaningful collaboration between students and artists. This project aims at fostering the creative fluency of students, utilizing the model of “the cycle of creative thinking” developed through observation in working with various artists and other creators. Collaborating with artists enables students to combine artistic activities with their own feelings or experiences. In this way, the art project makes the students develop creative thinking that contributes to liberal arts education.
The third new trend we examine relates to drama education and theatrical performance in Japan, as shown in the last three chapters. From the perspective of Augusto Boal (1979), theatrical work by ordinary citizens can be inherently called Socially Engaged Art, in which it is “the process itself—the fabrication of the work—that is social” (Helguera, 2010, p. 11), and which is “often characterized by the activation of members of the public in roles beyond that of passive receptor” (ibid, p. 11). Drama education and theatre are popular in Japan, even though there is no subject of drama in Japanese compulsory education in elementary and junior high schools. However, most of this has nothing to do with Socially Engaged Art. Theatrical events in Japan often take the form of school events such as a school play for children and their parents. Many high school children also participate in theater activities as after school club activities. Even in daily classes, short dramatization is popular to try to understand characters’ feelings. These practices focus on practical usage of drama in education for edutainment, or theatrical techniques as a tool for pedagogy. In contrast to the popular use of drama, a few school practices have focused on character building of students and teachers, and community reconstruction through collective drama making; these are practices which pay attention to the existential transformation of participants and community. A typical example is the case of professional stage director Toshiharu Takeuchi (Takeuchi, 1989), who conducted theatrical practice in high school night classes. In addition, many local public theaters organize civic plays for the public. While some are for popular drama spectacles, some of the participants realize internal growth through heated discussions before opening day. Furthermore, a drama that focuses on social issues like the Fukushima nuclear accident or poverty can urge the participants to reconsider the way of life in their society. In those practices, the field of drama making can be the site of collective transformation in “ontoepistemology” (Murris, 2016).
Chapters 9 to 11 are fresh reports of on-site collaborative activities of museum, high school, and immigrant after school programs. The drama performances in these chapters were conducted by each of the authors as facilitators at the sites. They do not look at the acquisition of theater techniques for gaining communication skills, acquiring subject knowledge, or training a theater director, but give the participants opportunities to take an ontological leap beyond epistemological understanding. Both the authors of Chapters 9 and 10 learned the Western tradition of drama education and applied theater at the universities in North America and the United Kingdom.
Chapter 9, ‘The Possibility of Museum Theatre in Japan: From “Hands-on” to “Minds-on” through Drama Work,’ written by Yurio Kobayashi, explores the possibility of Museum Theatre in Japan. It addresses the sense of ethnicity entwined with museum exhibitions. The drama was used to involve visitors in perceiving the emotional taste of different cultures presented in the exhibits of the museum. The idea of museum theatre (Huges, 1998) has not permeated Japan as it has the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The purpose of this chapter is to describe how museums can create an emotional connection between their visitors and the items on exhibit, make the visitors interested in the exhibits, and affect the visitors so that every exhibit comes alive and touches each visitor uniquely. The data were collected in a workshop facilitated by the author at the National Museum of Ethnology of Japan. By explaining the development of the workshop of Museum Theatre she was engaged in, Kobayashi reconsiders what happened there.
Chapter 10, ‘Why Can Girls Perform as Boys but Boys Reject Performing as Girls,’ written by Yuko Kawashima, considers students’ uncomfortable gender configuration in theatre classes at a high school. The drama aroused gender awareness among the participants and provided an opportunity to question their gender performance. It addressed the issue of gender equity, which has been considered a petty issue in Japan to this day. Kawashima examines high school students’ microgenetic process of deterritorialization (Deleuze & Guattari, 1972) of normative femininities and masculinities in theatrical classes. She shows that female students can enjoy the performance of being male, as opposed to male students who refuse to act as women, and considers the implications of gender-crossing in theater and actual life.
Chapter 11, ‘Drama Workshop with Scenario-Writing for Transnational Children,’ written by Hiroaki Ishiguro, takes on the issue of drama pedagogy for transnational immigrant teens. A drama about an elderly person who struggles in school life was introduced as a medium for transnational students to re-examine their school life and their situation. The idea of the workshop was based on Vygotskian play theory and multiliteracy perspectives. By introducing a drama-making workshop, it addresses what literacy skills linguistically and culturally diverse children have, and how they represent their school lives through drama-making activities in after school programs. The drama workshop was analyzed to clarify the children’s literary potential—based on their everyday lives, in addition to school lives—and their world views through their scenarios. The participants displayed high literacy proficiency by making drama play scenarios with full use of their funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992), and they also expressed their views of their school lives in their scenarios.
In sum, this volume focuses on three new trends around art and education in Japan: Arts-Based Research, art practices in academic research and education, and drama education/theatrical performance. However, we must admit that this is not a comprehensive overview of the trends in educational fields in Japan. Missing aspects include the STEAM movement and dance education in Japanese school settings, which are still in the budding phase. We hope that this volume will inspire and provoke discussion among researchers and practitioners in various educational settings on the future direction of art education in Japan and around the world.
Notes
E.g. the symposium entitled ‘Aesthetics and education’ was held by the History of Educational Thought Society in 1998, and the international symposium entitled, ‘Between Aesthetics and Education: Rediscovery and Reconstruction of the Aesthetics Access to the World’ was held in 2005, supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
He came to Japan in 2012 and held discussions with many professors of art colleges all around the country that have PhD courses for artists.
Cf. Bishop, “The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents,” in Bishop (2012).
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