The MAPS research project, funded by the Teaching Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) of New Zealand, involved four staff at New Zealand Tertiary College and two members of staff from the University of Auckland. This two year study examined performing artists working in early childhood centres developing activities in dance, drama and music with children. The artists’ sessions were designed as a stimulus to teachers working with children in elaborating their own invention in the three Performing Arts. What links the MAPS project with the Practitioner Research papers is that both are drawn from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987).

The first Practitioner Research study is by Ann Coballes, Master of Education student at New Zealand Tertiary College, who gives an account of children in Italy undertaking an examination of ‘crowds’ (Filippini & Vecchi, 1996). In following good practice, crowds are discussed with the children and examined through creating crowds with the children and seeing crowds through the evolution of ideas working as an ‘assemblage’. The ‘assemblage’ is also a theme of the paper by He Zhang, Postgraduate Diploma Student, New Zealand Tertiary College. He Zhang, in a study of the work of the dancer in the MAPS project, relates the dancer’s activity to the multiple interpretations made in relation to the Deleuzean concepts of de/re/territorialisation. The paper by Barbara Scanlan, Postgraduate Diploma Student, New Zealand Tertiary College, takes, as a point of departure, the experience of a drama specialist devising activity with young children. Barbara, with reference to her son, sees how children are capable of invention and learning if the opportunity is provided by teachers making room for the arts to function (Grierson, 2011). Haixiao Sun, Postgraduate Diploma Student, New Zealand Tertiary College, makes an extended study of the Deleuzo-Guattarian experience that children in Reggio Emilia present in the DVD ‘Shadow Stories’.

The three case studies reported on, feature dance, drama and music at three very different early childhood centres. The first case study, “What’s our next move?” Seeing children in the light of potentialities, by Marjolein Whyte and Christopher Naughton, both lecturers at New Zealand Tertiary College, is a report on dance and the impact that the dancer has on the children as they work with the Community Artist evolving and developing dance in their centre. By using game ideas as a starting point, the artist allows the structure to fracture and re-shape into a child-led, playful (de)territorialised event. The role of ‘striations’, or rules, are discussed in relation to making and how centres practically integrate such activity into their daily flow.

The second study, MAPS: Living, moving, emerging assemblages , looks at MAPS and a Māori immersion centre, Te Puna Kohunghunga. Authored by Jacoba Matapo, New Zealand Tertiary College, with John Roder from the University of Auckland, this is written in what has been called a duo-ethnographic style, a way of writing (Norris & Sawyer, 2012) that has grown in popularity amongst Deleuzean scholars. The paper reflects the ‘rhizome’, links with multiple connections without respect to conventions of linear learning pathways. This paper examines Deleuzean concepts of ‘assemblages of desire’ in an account of a ‘walking performance’ undertaken with the Community Artist for drama.

The final Special Edition paper, “…actually, with music, it just happens”: Interpreting signs within music in a performance based project MAPS, is written by Christopher Naughton, David Lines from University of Auckland, and Tiffany Liao from New Zealand Tertiary College. This looks at the work of the musician and teachers at a centre in Helensville, Auckland, taking the Deleuzean concept of ‘signs’, linking theory to the centre undertakings in music. Matters of uncertainty in the arts are explored in relation to how teachers working with the Community Artist and children gradually watched the children grow in their own musicianship to the point where they were able to realise their own group extemporisation.

Creative Arts in Education and Culture, edited by Samuel Leong and Bo Wah Leung, is reviewed by Sujatha Gomathinayagam, New Zealand Tertiary College. This encyclopaedic text looks at music in China today , with reference to both traditional and modern music. The author Samuel Leong is well known for work in music education and this background is revealed in the structure and provision of context, giving the reader a comprehensive overview of each musical genre.

Pearl D’Silva reviews International Perspectives in the Early Years, edited by Linda Miller and Claire Cameron. This publication provides an in depth examination of early childhood education across many countries, in particular, European states exploring current issues and topics. Policy issues are particularly interesting, and seeing the reaction to policy decisions on the part of practitioners and early childhood educators.

The next edition, November 2014, will be focusing on Children’s Narratives for which copy is still being accepted. The editors for the next edition are Dr. Christoph Teschers and Pearl D’Silva.

References

• Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Filippini, T., & Vecchi, V. (Ed.). (1996). I cento linguaggi dei bambini / The hundred languages of children. Reggio Emilia, Italia: Reggio Children.
• Grierson, E. (2011). Art and creativity in the global economies of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43, 336–350.
• Leong, S., & Leung, B. W. (Eds.). (2013). Creative arts in education and culture. Hong Kong: Springer.
• Miller, L., & Cameron, C. (Eds.). (2014). International perspectives in the early years. London, UK: Sage Publications Ltd.
• Norris, J., & Sawyer, R. D. (2012). Toward a dialogic methodology. In J. Norris, R. Sawyer, & D. E. Lund (Eds.), Duoethnography: Dialogic methods for social, health, and educational research (pp. 9-40). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
• Sara, D. P., & Spaggiari, S. (2012). Shadow stories - Poetics of an encounter between science and narration. Retrieved from http://www.reggiochildren.it/?libro=shadow-stories-dvd&lang=en