Four students, assigned midterm project/In fair Michaelangelo's, we lay our scene...

[jackshoegazer]

It's a slow Monday here on the ol' ElJay. How am I supposed to procrastinate studying for my theatre test on Wednesday if you people won't post. I'm just going to assume that you're all very busy with work, school, and NaNoWriMo, which is something I am failing horribly at since it's already Guy Fawkes Day and I haven't written a word.

On the bright side, my theatre midterm project is coming along pretty well. My group decided to cover masks, their use and history in theatre. We have to give a ten-to-fifteen minute presentation, a polished presentation of our findings. I met with the group at a coffee house downtown on Sunday to discuss where we were all at with our research. It was a nice discussion, with the exception of the one member who has bailed on us for every meeting.

I'm covering the Greeks, which is chronologically the oldest of the civilizations we're covering. Steven is concentrating on a sort of Krishna-related theatre (I forget the actual term and location), Greg is covering the Japanese, both Noh and Kabuki, and Chris is our Elizabethan expert.  It seems that the origin of all four started off as the worship of the gods, or at least imitation thereof.

After we got through the planning stage, after we'd found three significant themes that seemed to unite all four cultures together, the divine origin, the meanings of the masks, and the social functions, I said, off the cuff, "It would be nice if we could just do a sort of meta-play instead of an official presentation.  We could stage the four of us sitting around, basically recreating this meeting, since we just discussed everything we want to present."

I expected that comment to fall by the wayside, but Steven said, "Why couldn't we?  Because... that's a great idea."

"Um, we'd have to script the whole thing, and condense it down to fifteen minutes from the forty-five we've been sitting here," I replied.

Greg said something about it being a good idea too and we quickly reconstructed the basics of the conversation, narrowing down the themes and in what sort of order we could present it.  We also decided to have a PowerPoint on the screen behind us, illustrating what we're talking about, for instance, if Greg shows me an illustration of paint patterns for Kabuki face painting, then the audience will see what I'm seeing.  When I talk about Dionysus, there will be goats and wine.

"We can be pretty sure none of the other groups will think to do this," I said.

"Yes," Steven replied, "we will get an A and we will crush them all!"

And thus was born METAPRESENTATION NUMBER TWO: a presentation disguised as a play about a meeting to plan a presentation.

Comments

[schmecky.livejournal.com]

May I make a totally obnoxious suggestion?

Consiser incorporating Commedia dell'arte in there somewhere. They're the masks we used most often in training and the first group that spring to mind when you mentioned masks, and they're all about archetypes that serve as the origins of a huge amount of comtemporary theater, film, and tv.

Or just ignore me :)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Somehow, even though that's a very good area, no one in our group grabbed on to that. Maybe because it's well-covered in our text? Not sure. But I appreciate the suggestion. If we had planned a bit more, we might have had our sort of non-existent member cover that since it fits right in the chronology with the other areas we're covering :)

[schmecky.livejournal.com]

I wish I could see the meta-presentation, since you're covering some things I don't know much about!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Maybe when it's finally done, I'll post the script here on my LJ :)

<3

[anomalon.livejournal.com]

that's very Brechtian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienation_effect)

i love it.

Re: &lt;3

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Ah, we covered Brecht in class, concentrating mostly on his idea that theatre should be used for social change or nothing at all. He did stress the idea about making the audience painfully aware that they were watching a production.

Thanks :)

Re: &lt;3

[anomalon.livejournal.com]

I really admire artistry that includes the discernment of the audience as an integral component... like it's not possibly complete as a one-way communication to a hypnotized receiver...

[weishaupt.livejournal.com]

mmmm wine and goats

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

And dancing, don't forget.

[curtain-curtain.livejournal.com]

Your presentation sounds fantastic. I find your ideas really intriguing, since a lot of my research revolves around theatre theory/history...albeit more recent, Western theatre. Wish I could be there to see you rock the classroom.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was one of those off-the-cuff ideas I never expect to be taken seriously on, but that also seems to be my lot in life.. someone else recognizes one of my off-the-cuff remarks and says, "Hey! That's a great idea!" and I didn't even notice it. I have to start remembering to validate my own ideas, I suppose.

This is just an intro class. I only took it because I need have a speech requirement and thought it would be better than a speech class. I was pleasantly surprised - this is my favorite class of the semester.

[lagizma.livejournal.com]

And thus was born METAPRESENTATION NUMBER TWO: a presentation disguised as a play about a meeting to plan a presentation.

Dude, people do lots of drugs to have insights like that! Your education rocks.

I posted pumpkin carving pictures for your procrastinating pleasure.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. I have insights like that all the time. I wonder what that means ;)