All-Age Co-creation: Community Musicals as Social

Using participatory art to foster connection, drive change, and reimagine relationships.

Since 2018, this innovation project has brought together people aged 3 to 93 through participatory musical. Across generations, participants learn, create, and perform together—fostering empathy, connection, and reflection. Expanding into schools and communities, it builds an all-age learning ecosystem, embodying creative aging. This is a practice of relational aesthetics—moving from "I" to "WE".

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated April 2026

Web presence

2018

Established

1.4K 2023

1.4K 2024

1.5K 2025

1

Countries

Community

Target group

Through this innovation, in a society increasingly marked by interpersonal distance and emotional detachment brought about by technology, we can restore meaningful and human-centered connections between people. By using art as a medium, individuals from different generations and backgrounds are not only brought together, but are also able to encounter one another’s lived experiences through processes of co-creation and shared viewing, thereby fostering deeper reflection on contemporary social issues. In response to the ongoing value conflicts, intergenerational tensions, and complex social phenomena within society, I aim to build an open and inclusive platform where diverse voices are given the opportunity to be expressed. Through being heard and engaged with, these voices can gradually be understood. In this way, educational practice extends beyond the transmission of knowledge, becoming a process that fosters dialogue, connection, and empathy, ultimately cultivating citizens who are more socially aware and compassionate. In most conventional educational settings, participants are often grouped within similar age ranges or comparable backgrounds. Only by creating such a platform is it possible to break down prejudice and discrimination, and to further promote equity and social justice. Most importantly, many participants have gone on to become outstanding creative aging educators through this project, ensuring the continuity and sustainability of its educational impact.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

This project is inspired by observations of intergenerational relations and civic competencies in contemporary society. Although children and adolescents are exposed to diverse values in a rapidly changing world, opportunities for meaningful intergenerational interaction remain limited. At the same time, stereotypes such as ageism and negative perceptions of older adults have become increasingly evident, weakening mutual understanding across generations and affecting everyday life as well as family relationships.
This project centers on students’ social and emotional learning and employs participatory art to construct an intergenerational learning environment. The co-creation and performance components are primarily carried out by university students and community older adults, forming the core structure of intergenerational collaboration. Elementary school students and preschool children mainly participate as audiences of micro-musicals, supplemented by guided discussions, game-based learning, and participatory performance activities in interaction with university students and community elders. These experiences help participants across different generations understand diverse life narratives while practicing listening and expression, gradually cultivating empathy, collaboration skills, and an imagination of civic aesthetics and a more inclusive society.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

The entire process is not simply "watching a performance," but a cyclical design encompassing three stages: "co-creation (university students and seniors) – presentation (mini-musical performance) – reflection and interaction (audience participation)." Within this structure, people of different ages participate in the same work at varying depths within a shared environment.
The design's innovation lies in transforming theater from a performing art into a social learning medium. Intergenerational interaction is no longer confined to classroom discussions but is achieved through shared experiences in real-world contexts, thereby fostering understanding, empathy, and collaboration.
During this process, participants of different ages discuss a range of social issues, including gender equality, human rights, and labor rights, as well as topics emerging in the digital age, such as digital inclusion and anti-fraud awareness. With the advent of the artificial intelligence era, elements related to artificial intelligence have also been gradually integrated since 2024.
This approach integrates interdisciplinary, cross-context, cross-cultural, intergenerational, and cross-ethnic pedagogical concepts, while also encompassing the principles of life education, gender education, moral education, human rights education, and aesthetic education. The relevant findings have been documented in the research and published in journals, conference papers, and workshop showcases.

How has it been spreading?

We organize multiple public performances to continuously enhance the social impact of the Micro Musical initiative. In addition, we actively collaborate with schools, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and public libraries, striving to extend this model of intergenerational co-creation and participatory art into a wider range of social contexts, thereby fostering connection and exchange across diverse communities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the project also adapted flexibly by adopting remote collaboration and online performance formats, ensuring the continuity of intergenerational co-learning and co-creation while demonstrating the project’s resilience and adaptability.
Furthermore, we disseminates the project’s core concepts, practical methodologies, and outcomes through lectures, public sharing sessions, and workshops. Through these channels, we aim to promote knowledge transfer and experience sharing, encouraging more institutions and communities to engage in intergenerational arts education and social practice.
In addition, we actively participate in international conferences, where we share our experiences with scholars from around the world and engage in collaborative discussions on innovative approaches to intergenerational learning and cross-generational exchange.
More importantly, this innovative initiative cultivate at least 10 outstanding creative aging educators in Taiwan, who will continue to advance this work across diverse settings.

How have you modified or added to your innovation?

The project was systematically refined through reflective practice and narrative inquiry. Based on the first-year experience, I developed a structured teaching and dissemination toolkit, transforming the Micro Musical from a single intervention into a reproducible community-based educational model that can be used by interested practitioners and local communities.
In subsequent years, the innovation has been continuously modified and expanded through an annual thematic design framework. Each year introduces a distinct focus to deepen the pedagogical and social relevance of the project. Themes have evolved from family relationships and emotional manipulation (2018), interpersonal misunderstanding and conflict (2019), bias, discrimination, and stereotypes (2020), coping with failure and emotional recovery (2021), ethical decision-making (2022), commitments and interpersonal responsibility (2023), mutual influence across time and relationships (2024), life choices, listening, and understanding (2025), to reflections on memory and reality, exploring what is lost and what remains (2026).
Tailored participatory activities are now embedded for different age groups to support deeper emotional and cognitive engagement with the performances. Over time, the project has evolved from a performance-based intervention into an integrated model combining arts-based pedagogy, social inquiry, and lifelong learning, continuously enriched through iterative reflection and expansion.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

It is recommended to begin with a “theme-driven participatory learning design” rather than focusing on theatre production itself. The first step is to clearly define the social or life-related issues to be addressed, and to consider the roles and interactions among children, youth, and older adults within the learning process.
In practice, the model can be structured into three layers. The first is the co-creation layer, where participants across generations share life experiences that are transformed into narrative materials. The second is the presentation layer, in which performances are designed as short, micro-scale theatre pieces that emphasize context and emotional resonance while remaining accessible. The third is the participation layer, where guided questions, games, and partial interactive elements enable audiences to move from passive viewing to reflection and dialogue.
In addition, facilitators must possess the ability to integrate social issues and civic competencies, as well as to translate knowledge across disciplines. Given the significant differences in language comprehension and expression across age groups, facilitators must also adjust communicative language appropriately, avoid overly abstract terminology, and employ concrete experiences and guided activities to support understanding. This helps participants build connection and empathy across differences, thereby fostering a stable and meaningful intergenerational learning process.

Media

The All-Age Micro Musical has held annual public performances since 2018, each focusing on specific themes. Over the past eight years, it has reached and engaged more than 10,000 audience members. In recent years, we have especially encouraged parents to attend with their children, using micro-musicals and related activities to explore social-emotional learning and contemporary social issues.

When parents attend the micro-musical with their young children, the experience becomes a shared learning journey, parents gain opportunities to discuss values, empathy, and relationships with them. This parent–child participation strengthens family dialogue, deepens mutual understanding, and creates meaningful moments for reflecting together on important social issues.

In Taiwan, it is traditionally common for grandparents to sit in the audience while watching their grandchildren perform on stage. However, this project inviting children to sit in the audience and watch older adults perform. Through this shift, children are given the opportunity to engage with and better understand the life experiences of older generations, fostering meaningful connection.

Through these performances, audiences are invited to reflect on social issues and diverse life experiences. The initiative continues to expand its impact by fostering intergenerational dialogue and participation across various educational and community settings.

Before the performance, the project director guides the audience to focus on key elements and connect the themes to everyday life. After the performance, the facilitator integrates concepts of civic literacy and moral philosophy to lead the audience in reflecting on the decisions and choices made by different characters in the story.

For younger children, the project director engages both parents and children in game-based activities, creating opportunities for shared parent–child interaction. Through these experiences, children are gradually guided to understand the performance content and its underlying meanings, while reflecting on interpersonal relationships and the principles that shape their behavior and decision-making.

Our performances are not limited to urban areas; we also reach remote and underprivileged communities to better understand the diverse needs across regions. Based on these insights, we adapt our creative approach to develop works that resonate with a wide range of audiences.

We also organize flash mob activities as a dynamic and engaging outreach strategy to help the public better understand the concepts such as intergenerational co-learning, arts and humanities education. One performance features students holding mobile phones with their hands bound by the Ethernet cable, presented as a form of performance art to reflect on technology’s influence on family relations.

Participants in the project include community elder adults and university students. Through randomized grouping, the design encourages interaction and dialogue across generations. This approach enables participants to better understand each other’s values, thereby reducing prejudice, conflict, and division arising from misunderstanding.

The project director's role is not to provide predefined answers, but to guide participants to gradually reflect on the relationships between people, between individuals and society, and between humans and nature through dialogue and co-creation, fostering deeper understanding, empathy, and a sense of shared responsibility.

Through dialogue, physical expression, and musical elements that create dramatic tension, interpersonal conflicts are brought into focus and made visible, thereby stimulating discussion and reflection. In this process, participants are able to re-examine the multiple perspectives and contexts underlying these conflicts.

This form of expression also provides a safe contextual space in which emotions and viewpoints that are otherwise difficult to express can be transformed and discussed, further promoting understanding and dialogue across generations. Through art as a mediating medium, conflict is no longer merely oppositional, but becomes a learning opportunity that can be made visible, understood.

With the advent of the AI era, we have guiding older adults to engage in film production using AI and digital tools. In 2024, we created short films through this approach, culminating in a screening at a professional cinema. This initiative enabled audiences to witness the power of intergenerational co-learning and the strong commitment of older adults in Taiwan to actively participate in society.

The project has expanded into a range of activities tailored to different age groups, as well as all-age participation, enabling participants to engage with and internalize key values. These activities are grounded in everyday contexts, allowing learning to move beyond abstract concepts and be translated into concrete actions and attitudes.

For example, participants of different ages are invited to envision and illustrate their future older selves, and to reflect on what efforts are needed in the present to achieve that vision. Through public exhibition and shared dialogue, the concept of creative aging is reinterpreted and expressed in new and diverse ways.

Implementation steps

1. Define the core theme

The process begins by identifying a central social or life-related theme that will guide the entire annual cycle of co-creation. This theme is not limited to artistic expression but is selected based on its relevance to civic education, intergenerational relations, and lived social experiences. Each yearly theme serves as a conceptual anchor that connects artistic production with broader societal reflection and learning objectives.

2. Identify participants and roles

This step involves clearly defining the participation structure among children, university students, and older adults. Rather than treating all participants equally in function, roles are designed to reflect developmental and experiential differences. Children primarily engage as observers and partial participants, university students serve as facilitators and co-creators, while older adults contribute lived experiences and narrative depth.

3. Form co-creation team

A stable interdisciplinary co-creation team is established, consisting of facilitators, student participants, and community-based older adults. This team functions as the core unit of interaction throughout the project cycle, ensuring continuity in dialogue, trust-building, and collaborative development across different stages of the process.

4. Collect lived experiences

Through structured interviews, storytelling sessions, and participatory workshops, participants from different generations share personal life experiences related to the selected theme. These narratives are documented not only as raw material for script development but also as a means of fostering empathy and mutual understanding across generational boundaries.

5. Reflect during co-creation

Reflection is embedded continuously during the co-creation process. Participants are encouraged to revisit and reinterpret shared experiences, question assumptions, and negotiate meaning collectively. This iterative reflection helps transform individual stories into shared thematic understandings that inform the creative process.

6. Transform into script and songs

The collected experiences are systematically translated into dramatic structures and songs, including character development, narrative arcs, and situational contexts. This process involves creative adaptation rather than direct reproduction, ensuring that lived experiences are transformed into performative and educational forms suitable for micro-musical expression.

7. Design micro-musical

Micro-musical structures are developed as short-form, flexible, and accessible performances. Emphasis is placed on emotional clarity, narrative simplicity, and adaptability to different venues such as schools, community spaces, and public institutions, enabling wider dissemination and participation.

8. Performance training

All co-creators undergo basic performance training, including acting techniques, vocal expression, physical movement, and interactive engagement strategies. The goal is not professional theatrical excellence but the ability to collaboratively communicate stories across generations in an embodied and expressive manner.

9. Audience participation design

Audience engagement is intentionally structured through guided questioning, interactive games, and selected participatory segments within the performance. These mechanisms are designed to shift the audience from passive observation to active cognitive and emotional involvement.

10. Live performance

The micro-musical is performed in public or community-based settings, integrating observation and participation. Audiences, particularly children and students, experience the performance as both artistic presentation and interactive learning environment, enabling multi-layered engagement with the themes presented.

11. Bidirectional reflection

After performances, structured reflection is facilitated for both creators and audiences. This includes guided dialogue sessions, group discussion, and reflective activities that help participants articulate their experiences, emotions, and insights, thereby deepening the learning impact across generations.

12. Documentation and iteration

All processes, outcomes, and feedback are systematically documented and analyzed. These records are then transformed into teaching materials, methodological guidelines, and reflective research outputs, which inform continuous improvement and the annual evolution of the model.

13. Impact evaluation and assessment

Design and implement both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods to assess learning outcomes, such as empathy development, intergenerational understanding, and civic awareness. This may include reflective journals, interviews, observation, and feedback instruments to capture both individual and collective changes.

14. Knowledge dissemination and scaling

Translate project outcomes into shareable formats such as workshops, training modules, public talks, and collaborative programs with institutions. This step aims to extend the model beyond its original context and support adoption in diverse educational and community settings.

15. Research integration and theoretical development

Integrate practice-based insights into research outputs, such as papers, case studies, or theoretical frameworks. Through systematic analysis, the project contributes to broader discussions on participatory arts, intergenerational learning, and civic education, forming a sustainable cycle between practice and knowledge production.

16. Partnership ecosystem building

Develop long-term partnerships across schools, community organizations, cultural institutions, and public sectors to form a collaborative ecosystem. This ensures the model is not dependent on a single team, but supported by a network that sustains resources, participation, and shared ownership.

17. Institutional integration and curriculum alignment

Embed the model into formal and informal education systems by aligning with curriculum frameworks, competency indicators, or lifelong learning structures. This allows the approach to move beyond project-based implementation into a more stable and institutionalized educational practice.

18. Long-term impact tracking and social transformation

Establish mechanisms to track long-term impact, such as changes in attitudes, community relationships, or sustained intergenerational engagement. This step connects short-term learning outcomes to broader social transformation and demonstrates the lasting value of the innovation.