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Performance Pedagogy
Performance Pedagogy® is a curriculum-based arts integration theory and

methodology that uses performance as an education, self-development and evaluation tool.

The performing arts (music, dance, and theatre arts), arts therapies and educational

psychology are integrated with traditional academic subjects with the intention of teaching

through performance. The theory and methodology was honed for over 37+ years and

registered® in 1999 by Dr. Marguerite Mariama – performing artist, educator,

dance/movement therapist and former professor in the City University of New York

Education System (CUNY). Performance Pedagogy® is an intergenerational empathy-driven

transformational strategy that is designed as an intervention tool for teachers, counselors

and others who have an interest in using the arts as an instrument for achieving academic

and/or personal growth.

Strategy Origins
Performance Pedagogy® principles support flexibility, openness, and curiosity as integral

aspects of the learning process. It is rooted in the African and African American ritual

traditions of incorporating the arts into everyday life scenarios to teach, sustain and

empower individuals and the community. Performance Pedagogy® is underscored by

research that embraces the nexus between intellectual development and artistic

accomplishment. Its principles facilitate personal, collective and social empowerment

inculcated through cognitive, social, and artistic learning. Untapped creativity is

recognized and transmuted into a mechanism for holistic education, social maturity and/or

personal development. Performance Pedagogy® incorporates higher order and critical

thinking skills and embraces the theories of Emotional and Multiple Intelligences – as

frameworks for nurturing personal evolution.

Public Education Applications
Performance Pedagogy® is particularly suited to the needs of urban and some rural

populations – and people of color in particular. It aids in heightening positive selfawareness

and self-development by cultivating character-building values and strategies –

(social and emotional intelligences) that are largely ignored in public school settings. The

strategy is to diagnose the cognitive, social, emotional and artistic abilities of each

student/participant and to provide feedback that develops the self-assurance and

confidence essential to learning and growing. Through the process of deconstruction and

reconstruction, participants are assisted in their transformation from basic thinkers into

critical ones who make positive life choices. They become productive, contributing leaders

within their families and communities. Performance Pedagogy® concepts are

used as a contextual framework for many classroom and personal development

applications.