Literacy in the Arts

This book explores the many dialogues that exist between the arts and literacy. It shows how the arts are inherently multimodal and therefore interface regularly with literate practice in learning and teaching contexts. It asks the questions: What does literacy look like in the arts? And what does it mean to be arts literate? It explores what is important to know and do in the arts and also what literacies are engaged in, through the journey to becoming an artist. The arts for the purpose of this volume include five art forms: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts.

The book provides a more productive exploration of the arts-literacy relationship. It acknowledges that both the arts and literacy are open-textured concepts and notes how they accommodate each other, learn about, and from each other, and can potentially make education ‘better’. It is when the two stretch each other that we see an educationally productive dialogic relationship emerge.

 “Literacy in the Arts: Retheorising Learning and Teaching presents a thought-provoking definition of arts literacy as multimodal that moves the conversation about the value of an arts education beyond the intrinsic versus instrumental debate, and into the realm of contemporary practice across arts disciplines. With chapters exploring arts literacy in traditional arts forms, new media, and creativity research, this volume will appeal to readers wishing to focus in on a specific arts discipline, or explore the concept of multimodality in arts literacy comprehensively.” Tracie Costantino, University of Georgia, Georgia, USA.