The roles of a teaching artist in an intergenerational arts residency

This thesis report presents a conceptual framework for understanding the roles of a teaching artist in an intergenerational arts residency program. The document addresses the questions: What roles does a teaching artist assume when creating and implementing an intergenerational arts residency? What tasks does the teaching artist undertake within the context of each role? In what way do these roles relate to each other? By examining the work of a teaching artist within the context of four roles—entrepreneur, educator, artist, and researcher—I offer a systematic codification of the labor of a teaching artist within intergenerational arts residencies. Throughout the document, I use the Age-to-Age Program, a series of two intergenerational arts residencies, as an example of the teaching artists' process of developing, implementing, and evaluating programs. The document concludes with an examination of how the four teaching artist roles fit together, recommendations for teaching artists in intergenerational arts programs and suggested areas for further research.