COURSE DESCRIPTION

In this course, students will learn to help a community recognize, value, and plan to use its own arts to meet local needs and goals consistent with the Kingdom of God. The course provides a compact overview of the Create Local Arts Together (CLAT) model of community engagement. The CLAT process consists of seven flexible steps (or conversations) grounded in ethnographic and appreciative inquiry approaches: meet a community and its arts; specify goals; select communication genre and content; analyze the genre; spark creativity; improve new works; integrate and celebrate for continuity. Students will engage with the model through three pedagogical cycles, culminating in applying it to a real-life context and their own ministry plans.

COURSE FACILITATORS

Dr. Robin Harris - Chair, Center for Excellence in World Arts at Dallas Int'l University; President, Global Ethnodoxology Network; served in Siberia 10 years.

Dr. Chris Gassler - GEN Master Facilitator; Arts Consultant and EthnoArts Coordinator for SIL Africa Area; served in Cameroon for 10 years