Catalog of Critical Creativity

Creating with Words: I think the "Resume Rational" activity would be a great one for a characterization project. In my own theatre classes my teachers would have me write a background story on m character but I always found it difficult because I didn't know where to start. I feel like this activity has many of the same outcomes but narrows the field a little making it easier for students to make decisions. I also have a half baked idea with the "Blackout Poetry" activity. I think it could be fun to create a new text using an existing text fro a play. I feel like this can be used with subtext and maybe having students decide what the characters might really be saying in a conversation. Or using it as a playwriting exercise to help students get rolling with their script. Like I said, it's a half baked idea so I'm not really sure where I would be going with it.

Creating with Images: The "Color Palette" activity would be a great one to use when working on costume design. I often feel like it is easy to get caught up in the traditional meanings of colors (green=knowledge & growth, purple= royalty, blue= calm & peace, etc) but this way students can identify more with the color and discover the meaning it represents. They can then use the colors to help represent a three dimensional character. The "Mondrian-ify" activity can help make this a little deeper as we add shapes to the assignment. The shapes of a costume can also add to the way the audience may view the character.

Creating with Sound: The "Audio Landscape" activity is a great one to use when teaching sound design. For me sound design that is often something that is forgotten because it isn't as visual as all the other design elements. But by giving students explore how sounds can transport you the will begin to have a better understanding of the need for sound designers.

Creating with Body: The "Dallowinian Party" would be a great exercise to use to explore objectives and tactics. Students could use characters from the show they are currently working on or improved characters. By giving them an objective throughout the scene they can explore using different tactics to try an achieve their objective.

Creating with Stuff: "Metaphorical Architecture" would be a wonderful activity to use to teach set design. It can help students think more deeply and critically about how the set can affect the story line. The house is not just a house but it is filled with clutter to show how the character is always a jumbled mess, hopping from one thing to the next. The elements of the structure are not just presentational but representational of what is happening within the scene.

Creating with Social Media: "GIF Story" is a great way to get students more involved in playwriting. When you say playwriting students will automatically start thinking about writing down conversations between people but you can get them started in telling a story by using this activity. By starting off a playwriting unit they may become more engaged with the stories they are trying to tell.

Things to explore more:
Director's Concepts
Faux Media accounts- What a character would be feeling in that moment.
Two Images One Word- Help focus research and descriptions.

An Identity Remix

Mariachi As Sisters in Zion

Sheet Music

I was very excited to do this project because it is one of the first ones where I was able to come up with an idea pretty quickly. I began this project by listing the things that I identify with. The ones that I felt the strongest connection with were being a musician, a woman, a Latina, and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. From here I decided that I wanted to arrange a church hymn into a mariachi piece. I then chose As Sister in Zion because it is in the key of c and it talks about being a woman in the church. I felt that all of these represented me pretty well. The process was a long and hard one because I have never composed music before, but I worked with a lot of people and felt really proud of the piece that I composed. I used the Noteflight software to help me write out the music and it also gave the ability to listen to the instruments playing my piece. It did take some work and imagination though because this software focuses on classical music and doesn’t carry the same Mariachi sound. I had to figure out how to get the strumming patterns from the guitars instead of having it play individual notes. I also had to find an instrument that sounded like a Guitarron and would be a good substitute. I ended up using the sound of a Double Bass to get a similar sound. I feel that each of these elements corresponded because they are all musical aspects and can work together to share the same message. They are also very traditional forms of music that people within the culture tend to hold very dear to them. However, they are very different in style. Hymns are usually soft and carry a lightness to them. Using the Mariachi instruments makes it sound very different, especially since we normally aren’t allowed to use brass instruments in the chapel. I think this piece can help show people that there isn’t one right way to do something. Just because it is traditionally done one way doesn’t mean it can’t end up being just as beautiful another way. It can also add to the current conversation going on in our country in regard to separation of race. People are afraid to mix together and try new things but if we just open ourselves to their ideas we might be able to create stronger identities and become more unified as a nation.

Metaphorical Fashion

We are constantly being separated because of our race, gender, and social class. By continuing to ignore the problems we will never fix them.

Seat Assignment Response

Allie's Assignment

1.     Find something on the main floor of the HFAC and look at it until you have connected it to something deeply rooted in your soul. It must be something you find in a physical location, not something you search for on a device. (Is it a piece of art that parallels your religious beliefs? Is it an askew tile in the ceiling that coincides with how you feel in social situations? Is it a person showing such earnestness in his or her actions that you feel inspired to be better or different?) Study this thing until you’ve really given all your emotions to it.

2.     Now write exactly ten words that come close to showing a) how you feel and b) what you’re seeing.

My Response:

The Market. Looks are deceiving, you never know their life.

Process Piece

Tuning the Violin

For this project I decided to do an audio recording of me trying to tune my violin. When I first saw this assignment, I originally wanted to do a silent video of someone playing the violin. I just kept thinking of the different angles I could get of the bow on the strings and of the person playing. But then I began to think about the reading where the teacher asked his students why they chose a specific platform to share their story. There needed to be more of a deliberate choice and reason as to why I chose the platform. I realized that the point of the violin is listen to it. The person playing isn’t as important as what is being played. So, I knew I had to do an audio recording of it. I chose to record the tuning process rather than me playing a song because I felt that tuning is more of a process and shows a little more of what a person has to do as they prepare to play (I also just didn’t want everyone in the class listening to me play horribly, but that went into my decision a little less). A violin player needs to have a good listening ear to listen for the small changes that need to be made for the violin to be in tune. Personally, I am not great at tuning by ear, but I know when it is out of tune, I just need some assistance from a tuner to get it right on. Violinists also need to have a great connection with their instrument, violins can react differently to strings and may need to be tuned by the pegs or the fine tuners. My own violin works best with the fine tuners but there are times when I need to use the pegs, but it is always a fight to get it just right by using those things. The violin isn’t as much as a visual instrument as others are. When a person is play guitar or drums part of the performance is watching them play, where you mostly just sit a listen to the violin. I believe all of this is demonstrated very well by using the audio recording. People say when you lose one of your senses the others intensify. In this case you lose your sight so you must listen carefully to what is being played. And even though the listener may not have a violin in their hands you can hear the violinist working carefully with her hands to get the pitches just right. By choosing to record the audio the audience focuses more deeply on the beautiful sounds the violin can create.

Seat Assignment

In 22 minutes in class today, you will design a costume for a mythical creature by taking photographs of clothing items that are being worn by peers throughout the HFAC and post your images to your blog as a collage.

A Walk Around my Neighborhood

Medium Specificity

In this image I used photoshop to change the appearance of the ice cream. For me ice cream is a magical treat that escapes all reality. I decided to use photoshop to make the ice cream become more cartoon like, the way I imagine it to look in my head. I feel that the photoshop really helped me add my personal feelings of what ice cream is to the image. The limitations of this photoshop work is that it loses all its sense of reality. You lose the shadows and dimension that an actual object has. You also miss out on its taste. It may look delicious, but you don’t get the chance to taste it and experience its chocolatey goodness. I decided to use photoshop because I have always found it intriguing how you can take a photo and alter it in order to have the audience look at what you see. I also find it interesting how you can take a simple, boring picture and through photoshop you can make it a beautiful piece of art by simply changing a few things. Though, in this project I didn’t use photoshop in the same way most photographers do. I wanted to use its editing software to create my dreamland in reality. I enjoy living in a world of imagination and photoshop allows me to share my perspective of life with everyone else. Using photoshop in this way also allows me to demonstrate my escape from reality. I am well aware that I am in a real place but there are many times when I like to escape and forget the world around me. Ideas like this are some ways a teacher can help their students respond to works of art. Having them think of their own lives and how they view them. By being able to connect to the world around the and comparing them to their own emotions they will be able to have a stronger response to it. This connection may take some work at first but if the students are able to connect with their emotions and become vulnerable to the work of art, I believe their own art work will become more inspirational and touching. A teacher can also aid their students in responding to media by having them practice working with different mediums. It can be difficult to connect with something you’re not familiar with because you are just trying to figure it out at first. But once you become familiar with it’s easier to see the art and not the strangeness behind it. That is one thing that I have appreciated from this class. The opportunity I’ve had to try new things and become familiar with different works of art so I can then create stronger connections with them.