2022 National Arts in Education Portal Day – Roundup

Arts in Education Portal 

On Saturday 5th November, our community of artists, teachers and arts in education professionals came together for the seventh annual National Arts in Education Portal Day, our first in-person national conference since 2019. This years event took place at East Quad, TU Dublin, in partnership with TU Dublin School of Art and Design and Conservatoire of Music and Drama and the Erasmus+ International Teacher-Artist Partnership (I-TAP-PD) PD Programme.

The conference was officially opened by John Walsh, Head of School, TU Dublin School of Art and Design, and later in the day John facilitated a tour of part of the East Quad campus giving delegates a look at the state-of-the-art facilities available to students.

With a special focus placed on ‘Seldom Heard Voices’, the day then unfolded out to the usual mix of presentations, smaller discussion-led presentations and creative workshops addressing this theme. The National Day also served as an opportunity for colleagues from the International Teacher-Artist Partnership (I-TAP-PD) PD Project to explore and share emerging learnings through two multiplier sessions within the Erasmus+ KA2 Initiative 2020-2023.

Image Credit: keynote speaker Dame Evelyn Glennie in conversation with Mark O’Brien, Executive Director The Abbey. Photograph by Cían Flynn, lookalive.ie

This years keynote took the form of an in conversation between guest speaker, the percussionist and solo performer Dame Evelyn Glennie who sat down with Mark O’Brien, Executive Director of The Abbey Theatre. In a highly engaging exchange lasting just under an hour, the pair delved into Dame Evelyn’s introduction to music in primary school, her hearing loss, the idea of success and how residual hearing and improvisation were important components in her career development.

In the plenery session that followed Dame Evelyn spoke about the importance of listening.

“I think listening is the glue to being human, to be honest”
“If we can cultivate this feeling of being listened to, and really what does this mean, listening doesn’t mean that we’re interacting with sound. It’s interacting with a presence that we’re in.”

The 2022 National Portal Day was also an opportunity for the Portal Editorial Committee to share it’s new strategic plan ‘A Community of Practice: A five-year strategy for the Arts in Education Portal,
Ireland’s national resource for arts and creativity in education. Officially launched by Dr. Katie Sweeney, Portal Chair and National Director for the Integration of the Arts in Education (DE), copies of which were available to delegates on the day and will be embedded into the Portal website as a living and accessible document in the coming months.

Image Credit: St. Agnes Teenage Chamber Orchestra with conductor Jimmy Kavanagh. Photograph by Cían Flynn, lookalive.ie

A day which saw the arts in education community convene to share, learn, talk, be inspired and interrogate best practice in the field came to a close with a heartwarming performance from St. Agnes Teenage Chamber Orchestra led by conductor Jimmy Kavanagh.

We would like to thank all our guest speakers, artists and all who joined us to engage in the conversation.

Stay tuned for our round up video which will follow soon!

A selection of the main talks and presentations are available to watch back online. Registration for viewing this series is available through the link here.

Image credit: 2022 National Arts in Education Portal Day. Photographer Cían Flynn (lookalive.ie)