Creativity in Music Education by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811327490
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Art Projects and Facilitation-Based Distributed Creativity

Art scenes in Japan in the twenty-first century differ drastically from those in the preceding period based on a significant increase in the number of art projects. Art projects in Japan are seen as parallel to the development of “relational aesthetics” (Bourriaud, 2002) and “socially engaged art” (Helguera, 2011) in Western countries. They are inevitably bound up with social conditions unique to Japan: Economic recession, serious depopulation, and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The sense of a social crisis has changed the idea of art in Japan. Art practices cannot be exempted from other social activities. In fact, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (starting in 2000) and the Benesse Art Site Naoshima (starting in 1989 and developing remarkably in the 2000s) were designed to generate positive economic effects, empower people in depopulated areas, as well as promote artistic endeavors.

Kumakura (2015) points out the five characteristics of art projects as follows: (1) emphasis on the process of art-making and active disclosure of that process; (2) site specificity, with reference to the social context of the site; (3) sustained, long-term, and developing operations, with expectation of diverse ripple effects; (4) collaboration among people of diverse social backgrounds and emphasis on communication to foster such collaboration; and (5) interest and engagement with social fields outside art (p. 2). In such projects, artists are no longer independent, autonomous, skillful masters; rather, they are producers/designers/directors of collaborative works in which their facilitation skills and integration of diverse participants’ ideas and capabilities are called into question.

In the 2000s, considerable numbers of art projects were undertaken throughout the country to revitalize towns and promote social inclusion of immigrants, persons with disabilities, and elderly persons. In such art projects, artists have assumed new roles through group creativity , and some musicians have actively participated. Most notable are Yoshihide Otomo (the world-famous guitarist in noise music scenes, also known as a composer of the 2013 popular TV drama Ama-chan), and Makoto Nomura (the internationally known composer , pianist, and keyboard harmonica player). Otomo, for instance, organized the Orchestra Fukushima at the Festival Fukushima in 2011 (Nakamura, 2014b). Fukushima is the infamous prefecture where the atomic power plant, Fukushima Daiichi, exploded. The Fukushima-born Otomo collaborated with other musicians and artists to hold a large-scale music-art festival in August 2011. Orchestra Fukushima, in particular, is an improvisational musical group consisting of 200 amateur and professional musicians from Fukushima and other communities. They gather with their musical instruments or objects for making music under Otomo’s direction. They follow a set of simple rules for their improvisations. However, the results largely depend on their voluntary participation and Otomo’s facilitation through workshops and during live performances. The orchestra has enjoyed success and popularity, which have led to subsequent and continuing developments (for the Orchestra Fukushima, see the website of “Project Fukushima!” Retrieved August 31, 2015, from http://​www.​pj-fukushima.​jp/​en/​).

With his advanced improvisational techniques, Nomura has developed unique approaches to group creativity with musically untrained adults, elderly people, and children. His workshop-based,

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