The Australian Curriculum: The Arts aims to develop students’:
- creativity, critical thinking, aesthetic knowledge and understanding about arts practices, through making and responding to artworks with increasing self-confidence
- arts knowledge and skills to communicate ideas; they value and share their arts and life experiences by representing, expressing and communicating ideas, imagination and observations about their individual and collective worlds to others in meaningful ways
- use of innovative arts practices with available and emerging technologies, to express and represent ideas, while displaying empathy for multiple viewpoints
- understanding of Australia’s histories and traditions through the arts, engaging with the artworks and practices, both traditional and contemporary, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
- understanding of local, regional and global cultures, and their arts histories and traditions, through engaging with the worlds of artists, artworks, audiences and arts professions.
Visual Arts
Visual arts includes the fields of art, craft and design. Learning in and through these fields, students create visual representations that communicate, challenge and express their own and others’ ideas as artist and audience. They develop perceptual and conceptual understanding, critical reasoning and practical skills through exploring and expanding their understanding of their world and other worlds. They learn about the role of the artist, craftsperson and designer, their contribution to society, and the significance of the creative industries. Similarly with the other art forms, the visual arts has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich the lives of students, encouraging them to reach their creative and intellectual potential by igniting informed, imaginative and innovative thinking.
Through Visual Arts, students make and respond using visual arts knowledge, understanding and skills to represent meaning associated with personal and global views, and intrinsic and extrinsic worlds. Visual Arts engages students in a journey of discovery, experimentation and problem-solving relevant to visual perception and visual language. Students undertake this journey by using visual techniques, technologies, practices and processes. Learning in the Visual Arts, students become increasingly confident and proficient in achieving their personal visual aesthetic, and appreciate and value that of others.
Visual Arts supports students to view the world through various lenses and contexts. Students recognise the significance of visual arts histories, theories and practices, exploring and responding to artists, craftspeople and designers and their artworks. They apply visual arts knowledge to make critical judgements about their own importance as artists and audiences. Learning in the Visual Arts helps students to develop understanding of world culture and their responsibilities as global citizens.
Performing Arts
Dance is expressive movement with purpose and form. Through dance, students represent, question and celebrate human experience, using the body as the instrument and movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, spiritual and physical communication. Like all art forms, dance has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging students to reach their creative and expressive potential.
Dance enables students to develop a movement vocabulary with which to explore and refine imaginative ways of moving individually and collaboratively. Students choreograph, rehearse, perform and respond as they engage with dance practice and practitioners in their own and others’ cultures and communities.
Students use the elements of dance to explore choreography and performance and to practise choreographic, technical and expressive skills. They respond to their own and others’ dances using physical and verbal communication.
Active participation as dancers, choreographers and audiences promotes students’ wellbeing and social inclusion. Learning in and through dance enhances students’ knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures and contexts and develops their personal, social and cultural identity.