Conservatoires are places of outstanding training excellence, in intense interaction with the national and international labour market, through the recruitment of highly qualified teacher-artists. They enjoy means that give them the possibility to carry out innovative actions, in connection with a research dimension on the one hand, and with the evolutions of the profession on the other hand. Their aesthetic and pedagogical choices reflect a strategic vision of the profession that the students graduating from these schools will then disseminate in the industry, of which they are often high-profile participants, and where they frequently work themselves as trainers, with other professionals, school and university teachers, or amateurs.The six conservatoires and superior schools of theatre involved in this project and operating in five European countries (France, Germany, Poland, Spain and Scotland) are aware of the various challenges this situation involves. They are constantly trying to open up to the diversity and the whole range of audiences in vocational training, and to adapt their courses to the cultural and economic changes in the sector, while taking into account major social issues, particularly from the point of view of the inclusion of disadvantaged audiences. Five of these schools are also members of the EUTSA network, where their dynamism and willingness to get involved in Europeanisation and international cooperation is reflected in their presence on the steering committee, where they were elected in 2016.However, the initial vocational training provided in these institutions is still very much marked by a more than century-old, national and monolingual teaching model. It needs to evolve, in particular by integrating a transnational and multilingual dimension, and thus contribute to supporting the internationalisation of the sector, which is desired by the stakeholders and the supervisory authorities, of training and vocational provision as a whole. This observation, shared by these schools and conservatoires, was further developed and quantified in a dialogue with a pair of researchers who are the authors of the attached study (ANNEX 1). Its main conclusions were shared in the course of intensive exchanges with several artistic and professional organisations in the performing arts and cultural diplomacy, especially focusing on issues of linguistic diversity and transnational cultural cooperation. All of these actors share the conviction that internationalisation, and in particular the increased mobility of professionals in Europe, supported by the introduction of multilingualism and cross-cultural skills, is a very relevant response to the economic and societal challenges that these schools, and the whole professional sector, are facing today.The overall objective of the project is therefore to strengthen transnational cooperation in order to create the conditions for a true European integration in the professional field of theatre. Which will be done through:-the development of training contents and skills (in particular language skills) which students and professionals in the sector need in order to be able to develop their professional life at a European/international level;-the pooling of practices, pedagogical and artistic approaches, and heritages, with a view to developing shared education and training programmes for professionals in the performing arts within schools and in particular via a dedicated platform E:UTSA Online Academie;-strengthening the mobility of European actors and directors, by acting on both the supply side (development of skills) and the demand side (creation of new opportunities for transnational collaboration).The target groups are:Current and recently graduated students, educators, relevant staff, associated artists and researchers in schools.Active members and users (artists, researchers, volunteers), staff (artistic direction, partnerships and international development) of partner arts organisations.Educators, users, audiences and relevant staff (cultural cooperation, language teaching) of cultural institutes.Trainers and users, national vocational training agencies.The whole sector and in particular actors and directors wishing to develop their activity internationally, production and distribution venues whose activity requires knowledge of the different European professional contexts, deaf artists, theatre or dance companies integrating sign languages.

The purpose of our project is to revamp and strengthen language teaching in schools through artistic practice, more specifically theatre performance, and to give visibility and value to linguistic and cultural diversity in schools and in the peri-educational field through multilingual creative practice, thus giving schools an active role in creating safe and creative spaces for intercultural dialogue, and fostering better understanding between communities. The partners in the project are schools, universities, and artistic or educational organisations active in one of the relevant fields, associated with policy-makers in education / immigrant integration, and local and regional authorities. The project (September 2020-December 2022) will be developed over a period of two academic years by beneficiary partners from France, Germany, Serbia, and Spain. With the first year mostly focusing on formalizing methods and sharing approaches among teachers and trainers, and designing a pilot project, the second year being devoted to the implementation of the pilot project. An additional three months will be used to collect and assess results, and share them with relevant stake holders. The languages involved in the project will be European languages taught by teachers and trainers in the consortium, non-European languages also taught in these organisations (Arabic mostly), and both European and Non-European languages spoken by communities living in the environment of these organisations (Arabic dialects, Amazigh, Maltese, Roma, Turkish, and more).The pilot project will culminate in a multilingual performance, which will be prepared and rehearsed through virtual and physical mobilities throughout the project, mostly in its second phase. Each country will be responsible for a minimum of one 15-30 minute module, and one local performance of their module(s). The final event at the end of the second academic year will bring together all countries and participants for several common performances. The theme of the multilingual performance is « Femmes de l’Ombre » (Women in the Shadows), focusing on women who contributed significantly in a number of fields, but were little or never known for their achievements, in recent and more ancient European history. Each participant or group will choose one of these women in the linguistic area corresponding to the language(s) they are teaching / working with, and work on collecting material and dramatizing that material, so this female figure can become one of the « characters » in the show. Any minority language present in the environment but not included in the practice and brainstorming on teaching methods will be included in the final show in the form of a vast multilingual chorus demonstrating the universal value and aesthetic potential of linguistic diversity. Not only will this theme raise awareness on an important gender-related issue, but it will do so while making participants aware of a shared history and heritage. It will allow involving in the project other teachers (of art, literature, cinema, physics, maths, biology, history), and professionals (video artists, sound and light technicians, graphic and augmented reality designers, musicians, public relations and communication specialists, event security organizers, etc) and encourage mutualisation and exchanges of good and innovative practices within each participating organisation, each national cluster, and at the transnational level. The teaching methods designed in the project, and tested and assessed throughout and after the bulk of activities, will be formalized and written out in the main languages of the project. The goal of participating organisations is to produce shareable and sustainable pedagogical and business models for the teaching of / in foreign languages in schools in cooperation with cultural / artistic organisations, and to advocate for this model to be disseminated throughout Europe and beyond, in order to raise the attractiveness and efficiency of language teaching in the educational and peri-educational sectors. Analyzing and experimenting with both formally taught languages and home languages will allow participants to build on existing expertise and share recommendations and methods to make sure learners’ language competencies are fully explored and promoted, and in the case of immigrant families, that their bilingual home environment is fully used as an asset, and not an obstacle, to their language-learning situation. The visibility and support given to linguistic diversity and multilingual practice in the project is also meant to achieve other results, namely a better understanding between communities in a given territory, and a tighter and more confident relation between schools and students’ families. And allowing local and regional entities to rely fully on educational and artistic organisations for a constructive dialogue on multicultural and multilingual practices and issues.