Community art as an element of civic and cultural education in the Netherlands

In this paper the author presents the community art as an example of practices that can be perceived as the element of both cultural as well as civic education. While stressing the pragmatic approaches and practice-oriented methods of teaching and learning in the Netherlands, the author presents shortly the formal premises of both types of education. Then the practice of community art has been described and analysed. The description is based on ethnographic study conducted in one of the Dutch cities. This piece of research is pertained to the street theatre and pantomimic visual art. In her analyses, the author highlights the potential of community art to rising both the civic and cultural awareness of community art participants. The paper also aims to show that community art fulfills not only the educational but also political role in the Netherlands being perceived as rightful partner of professional arts