Ethnoarts activities and goals for
Caitlyn’s Internship
Brian Schrag
Overview
Caitlyn’s internship in Guatemala will last approximately two
years. Its primary function is to provide Caitlyn the opportunity to apply the
knowledge and skills that she has gained in her training to ethnolinguistic
communities in the Atitlán area, with the guidance and support of mentors. Her
primary focus will be with Kaqchikel people, also exploring Tzutujil social,
artistic, and community goals when helpful. After a successful internship,
Caitlyn will be fully competent to work as an Arts Specialist with SIL;
subsequent assignments and plans for professional development will be chosen in
consultation with God and his primary partners in this work: Caitlyn, Viña,
Kaqchikel and Tzutujil community members, SIL Americas Area, and SIL’s
International Ethnoarts staff.
Caitlyn’s support and guidance team consists of
- Ed. Overall coordination and supervision
- José. Local coordination, supervise Viña activities
- Sarah. Friendship and connections to Kaqchikel communities
- Pam. Supervise Language and Culture Learning activities.
- Brian. Supervise Ethnoarts activities
We will set goals and communication schedules together.
Everyone wants to help Caitlyn thrive in every area of her life during the
internship.
How to know Caitlyn is succeeding during and after the
internship
This internship consists of three central work-related
components: Language and Culture Learning; Ethnoarts; and tasks with Viña.
Undergirding all of this is Caitlyn’s physical, emotional, relational, and
spiritual health. This document primarily addresses ethnoarts components, which
need to coordinate with other activities and goals. We will know that Caitlyn
is succeeding in her ethnoarts work by reflecting in two ways:
1. Connection to
overarching goals. First, we will evaluate her work by its contribution to
these overarching goals: a) growing, interdependent, comfortable relationships
with Kaqchikel (and Tzutujil) people; b) increasing knowledge of and
appreciation for Kaqchikel arts by Caitlyn, families and others in the area,
local and regional churches, and others; c) increasing number and quality of
actions that connect Kaqchikel artistic genres with increasing signs of God’s
kingdom in the Kaqchikel population and churches; d) integration of ethnoarts
activities into other elements of the internship, such as Language and Culture
Learning.
2. Completion of
ethnoarts activities and their products. Second, we will assess and guide
Caitlyn’s ethnoarts performance by her completion of particular tasks and
products, mostly emerging from activities in Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach Their
Kingdom Goals. Caitlyn will devote her ethnoarts time to the documentation
of and participation in as many local ethnolinguistic artistic genre enactments
at a basic level as possible, and more in depth documentation of and familiarity
with a few genres. Her capstone activity will be initiation of an exploratory Creating Local Arts Together project,
going through all seven steps of the CLAT process. She will add what she learns
to a Community Arts Profile (CAP) dedicated to a Kaqchikel community. The table
below identifies related activities defined in the CLAT Manual.
Learning about Kakchiquel local arts and goals
|
Activity
|
CLAT resource(s)
|
|
These
activities are mostly about research and making relationships.
|
| Develop an initial list of artistic genres in the community. |
Manual Step 1
|
|
Video, audio record several enactments of at least one genre, taking notes and creating metadata to keep track of your recordings.
|
Manual Steps 1, 4
|
|
Identify elements of one of the genres that you’d like to understand better, and design and implement analytical recordings to allow analysis of those elements. Elements could include texts of songs, woven materials, dance movements, gestures in storytelling, and so on.
|
Manual Step 4A, 4B
|
|
Research and analyze one genre according to its social dynamics in the community. This is ethnographic research.
|
Manual Step 4C
|
|
This activity allows
Caitlyn to test the whole research and co-creation process.
|
|
Perform an exploratory CLAT project.
|
Manual Steps 1 - 7
|