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Arts & Communication Performance arts, public space, and early childhood

her concept of the “performer-child,” and artists such communication. Contact with the artistic experience from
as Núcleo Quanta, have made progress in fostering the the earliest years enables the development of symbolic,
relationship between art and childhood. They have done creative, and communication skills, which accumulate
so by adopting an immersive approach that blurs the lines in the body as perceptive sensoriality and sensitive
between the work, the spectator, and the city. intelligence. These contributions lead to an approach

When investigating artworks with children and not to working with children that opens them up to a more
simply for children, some fundamental questions arise: sensitive and cooperative world, open to the changes
How does art speak to childhood? How does the artistic needed at this planetary moment of paradigm revision. In
experience express a young child’s being in the world? How this sense, esthetic experiences intertwine with informal
does contemporary performance art connect to children’s education, establishing a play that breaks through the
potency? By considering intelligence from multifaceted walls of the school and involves children, their parents
perspectives, artistic expression and the expansion of the and caretakers, and artists who are willing to share these
imagination participate in the development of the child’s experiences.
identity. They engage a child’s sensory intelligence and 4. It takes a whole village to raise a child 2
enhance their capacities for observation, communication,
and perception. In addition, this involvement fosters While the well-known proverb gives us the understanding
cognitive development based on experiences with spatial that in traditional, indigenous, and African societies,
qualities, weight, volumes, textures, sounds, light, and children are an integral part of the community, participating
colors. in its different instances as a collective responsibility, the
understanding of the uniqueness of childhood and its
In the Common National Curriculum Bases (BNCC) participation in Western society has presented different
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for Brazilian education, children’s rights to learning and contours throughout history. Concern for children’s
development include interaction, play, participation, education, as a good that permeates society and on which
exploration, self-expression, and getting to know each its future depends, gained significant prominence from the
other. These elements are widely present in the artistic 18 century onward, coinciding with the universalization
th
experience. The BNCC’s structuring axes stipulate actions of education and its focus on preparing children for life.
and play among peers and with adults that enable learning,
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development, and socialization. Deepening bodily, Notable ideas, such as Rousseau’s , which emphasized
sensory, expressive, social, and cognitive experiences, the right to education, the uniqueness of each child, and
which in early childhood involve exploring gestures, their development as virtuous individuals for life in a free
sounds, shapes, textures, colors, words, objects, stories, and and democratic society, became popular. This highlighted
play, are indicated as a broad learning path and as a right the importance of sensory development and community
th
recognized in the specificity of early childhood as a social ethics. However, it was only in the 20 century that
group and participant in society. children were recognized as a matter of public order,
becoming subjects of rights and the protagonist of a set of
A young child’s development and learning necessarily laws and regulations aimed at safeguarding their lives and
involve the five senses, which are responsible for reading full growth.
the world around them and for enhancing and perfecting
bodily, cognitive, and socioemotional skills. A young Different political and legal proposals have
child’s interaction with the world is determined by the emerged to defend children as subjects of special
way their body moves, occupies space and interacts with rights around the world, with the Universal
objects, the environment, and the sensory qualities of both Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), the
sound and physical properties. In this sense, an attentive Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989),
look at a child’s body structure and proprioception, the and the World Conference on Children (1990).
appropriate stimulus for their movement, interactions In Brazil, this agenda has gained more ground
with environments, and actions that challenge their since the Federal Constitution (1988) and the
sensory-motor perception, as well as the interaction with Statute of the Child and Adolescent (1990).
performative actions that stimulate playful and exploratory The focus on early childhood, however, only
st
responses from children’s senses, are collaborations that art became a political issue in the 21 century when
and esthetic experience can provide. the Legal Framework for Early Childhood was
approved (Law 13.257/2016), which establishes
Art is thus understood, from early childhood onwards, the conditions and guidelines for the preparation
as an experience that not only provides cognitive
development but also autonomy, expressive freedom, and 2 African proverb in the public domain.

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1668