10-12/A Blog: Universal Themes

Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring is, in the broadest terms, about the pioneering spirit in America. I chose to answer the following questions in this blog as required.

1. In your opinion, why does a story about pioneering spirit have universal appeal?

In Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, it was about the pioneering spirit in America and it is universal because every artist, visionary, etc. have to have that pioneering spirit to create or perform their work. This spirit is what everyone who ventures into a new path or direction uses every time they try something new. It is what helps drive us to succeed when doing something new. This story relates universally for that reason. It is the adventurer in all of us that is attracted to such a story.

2. What is another work of art (visual art, music, movie, book, theatre, dance) that expresses a similar concern or theme? Discuss both parts of this question a blog post and support with details.

Star Trek the series is has its entire bases is on "going where no one has gone before". It is the pioneering spirit along with a scientific curiosity that becomes the driving force for the show and their Starship Enterprise's journey. Science is about new discoveries and art is about creating new expressions both require a pioneering spirit to achieve the unknown.  In fact, growing up and finding your way in the world requires a little bit of this pioneering spirit as well. That spirit is what the Star Trek series represents.

U12-Dance-A3-Blog Collaborative Skills

Merce Cunningham has a dance company and Robert Rauschenberg is an artist costume designer. Both of these men should be professionals and as long as they are clear on what each needs from each other to work together then there should not be a problem The dance company needs costumes and the costume designer should be able to design them to the dance companies specifications. Otherwise, if the two cannot respect each other enough to work together then they should not. I would be a good collaborator especially if I had a business that pertained to a potential client then I would try to meet their expectations to deliver what they need from my business. If Robert Rauschenberg as an artist needed only to do his vision for his work then he would not be very good at meeting what the client's vision is and how in this case it would relate to the dance that Merce Cunningham Dance Company designed. It is not personal it's business.

U12-Music-A5 Blog-CPR

The internet and digital players have made it easier to have a variety of music at your fingertips such as Mp3 players or from your computer touch pad, etc. I finally heard Ma Rainey a few days ago on the internet for the first time. I never knew she existed and without the internet and technology, I could have never heard her performance or be able to respond to her blues music. There also is software that can help someone design a song from musical notes they choose even if they do not quite understand what they are writing. That type of technology could open more people to song writing or composing. I have played with some of this type of software and it was exciting to create my own piece of music. The internet gives every artist whether they are popular, oldies, traditional, etc. a chance to be heard by new younger audiences. It keeps their music alive and makes it a part of the vast knowledge known as the internet.

U11-Dance-A3-Discovery Journal Kentuckians in Dance

Harina Churn-Diallo

African Dancer/Artistic Director

Imani Dance and Drum Company Louisville, Kentucky

 

Harina Churn-Diallo grew-up in Louisville, Kentucky. She lived in Park Hill housing project and studied dance. She attended college at the University of Louisville and has degrees in Pan-African studies as well as cultural anthropology. She has studied and performed all around the world in places like Paris, Japan, and Africa. She is an African dance performer and teacher of tap, ballet, clog, Native American, salsa, jazz, and belly dancing. She has choreographed theatre in Louisville and Chicago. She teaches African Dance at University of Louisville. Harina and her husband Yaya Diallo (a world renowned African drumming expert) own the Imani Dance and Drum Company where they teach dance and drumming. She decide to come back to Louisville after traveling and performing world-wide because she recognized the importance of teaching self-confidence and self-worth to African-American children and adults as well as helping others to have a greater appreciation and respect for the polyrhythmic sounds of Africa and the African culture.  In fact, Harina made this statement which basically describes her mission in life “Get a passport and travel the world, so you can bring to your dance company a world base, not this little-bitty myopic view about culture. Music has been a tool of communication for thousands of years. You don't have to be the best dancer in the world. You have to be able to give to your students this knowledge that you have that makes them want to get more knowledge, to understand that their bodies are works in progress. You add sound and props to help give light to your dancers. We're like the light bulb as artistic director. How you get there is on the dancers themselves.”

U11-Dance-A2-Blog Dance Experiments

For this dance experiment, I walk in time to the music and I moved my arm to the music. At first, it seemed ok but after I got into the music it was fun and somewhat easy at first but became a little harder for the full length of the song. I became very determined to continue until song end. It was a little odd to only be moving one body part but it was still fun. Dancing one move is kind of hard and isolating one body part is strange if you like to dance freeform. It does take a lot of strength and skill to perform dance for hours as the professional do it. I applaud their strength, dedication and talent.

U11-Music-A2-Blog Review a Work

One of my favorite songs and videos is Michael Jackson's "Thriller". "Thriller" was written by Rod Temperton and produced by Quincy Jones. The song originally was called Starlight instead of "Thriller". Once it was changed to "Thriller" then Vincent Price had a speaking part that was also added. That made the song even more thrilling since Vincent was in so many scary old movies. This pop song is great but when the visual video is added then the song just comes to life. It has a fast heart pounding tempo with a collaborative dynamics and form that really set it apart from other modern music compositions. It is truly a musical work of art. It is still popular today and I think it will be popular for some time to come.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(album)

U10-VisArt-A2-Blog-O'Keefe's 'Red, White, and Blue'

In Georgia O'Keefe's 1931 painting Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue, she gives a good sense of balance with the solid red side borders which transition to the white to blue sections on each side of the cow's skull that was sun bleached white. The skull itself with its eye sockets, horns, and other parts of the skull seems to take you away from the fact that this is a skull of a dead cow. It gives it an almost lifelike quality. The way the red, white, and blue sections are designed using space, color, and shape it gives the skull an almost 3-D quality which brings it off the canvas. These elements along with the contrast created by her design, and her use of variety to give the skull more life makes this painting very unique and intriguing to see.

U10-Dance-A3-Blog Connecting Dance & Photography

The 1938 photo is of people in a place dancing the Jitterbug. It appears to perhaps be a competition or performance of this dance since many people are present and watching the dancers as they perform. There is a girl who is trying to entice her friend or sister to join in the dance by trying to create a performance from what the picture shows. In addition, there is a man and woman who are dancing or performing the dance while many people are watching and taking pictures as well as responding to their performance. All the men are wearing suits to look nice and the girls are either wearing long dresses or long skirts with a blouse. It was the norm for women and men to dress this way when they danced or socialized during this time period. People were expected to dress and act very modest back then or they would have society blackball them or label them as undesirable. The crowd is so big because there was not that many events that people could participate in together so most everyone would come to these types of events. It was a great source of entertainment for the youth when these social events took place in their community.

U10-Overview-A5-Portfolio-A Digital Exhibition

 

Each of the photos below came from the Google photo archives.

I chose the Progressive Era photos because they represent the era they come from in this era. In this era women were uniting for rights to vote and alliances were formed to get things done such as proper meat inspections(left) and children were used as workers and worked long, hard hours with poor working conditions (right). The pictures of WWI were troops going to war (Left) and troops returning home (right). The pictures of the Great Depression were soup lines (Left) and a worried mother (right). The pictures of the Jazz Age were of a jazz band which had a bass, horns, etc. (Left) and flapper dancers (right). The pictures of WWII were of "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" (Left) and the "V-J Day" photo of the nurse kissing the soldier when they heard that WWII was over (right). I choose each of these photos because they captured the essence of the time period; however, these periods were so much more than just two photos can really represent.

U9-Theatre-A6-Discovery Journal A story telling performance

U9-9B-Blog-Music and Dance of West Africa

The polyrhythmic Manjani music and dance of West Africa was a multi-percussion display of music and dance. The instruments played were a lot of different types of drums and bead shaker type of percussion instruments. The people playing the instruments also dance to the rhythm of their song. This song was played at a fast tempo. Each percussion instrument relied on the different instruments timbre to create the polyrhythmic sound. The dancing performed by the musical players relied on the on force to move to the rhythm of the music, on time to move to the beat of their music, and on space so that each performer had enough room to play their instrument and dance at the same time. These slight but powerful movements help the viewer to not only hear the music but fell it as well.

U9-Dance-A5-Blog-Dance of My Choice

I picked the flowing clip of disco from Saturday Night Fever where John Travolta was dancing: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3j1w_john-travolta-saturday-night-fever_music. This dance performed by John Travolta was a type of disco dance that uses the dancer's whole body throughout the dance. In West Africa the dancer include their whole body in the dance such as arms, head, legs, hips, etc. The fact is disco was derived from African influences and it makes a lot of sense that the dancing would also have influences from Africa as well.

Art-U9-Music-A4-Discovery Journal-Put it all together

American music comes from many sources. America is a melting pot of immigrants from all over the world. Everything we are as a country had its influences come from our founding fathers and our American ancestors. This is especially true for the many types of music that is a strong part of our American heritage even though much of its origins were influenced by other countries’ musical styles. Today, our music is a fusion of many different styles such as African, South America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and those uniquely developed by Americans.

Some of the strongest influences happened in the last century. In 1920s, Afro-Cuban dance music and West African became popular in America. In the 1940s, Cubop became popular and it was a combination of Afro-Cuban rhythms as well as American jazz. In the 1950s, bossa nova music was imported from Brazil and Calypso music made it on the pop charts. In the 1960s, the Beatles brought Indian sitar music into the rock style, traditional songs became folk rock, South African folk and pop music was introduced here by Miriam Maketa. In the 1970s, Malian Touré brought a blues sound to African melodies, and Jamaican reggae became popular which influenced punk. In the 1980s, music is becoming more world connected so many other musical influences were introduced in America by popular pop stars. Some of these artists used music from more African styles, Latin American, Bulgarian, etc. In the 1990s, more influences became a part from our culture. Some examples are Afro-Gaelic, punk Ukrainian, etc. As time goes on and the world is becoming more and more united by the internet and social media our influences will surly become even broader as we connect with everyone throughout the world.

In fact, some of the things that I learned in this lesson was how our music has such a strong connection to many musical styles from around the world especially Africa and Latin. It was interesting to see how most of these influences were more recent then one would think but I am sure that technology such as recorders, record players, etc. was part of the reason music could be so widely shared. All in all, now that we can talk or listen to things from around the world in just a few clicks, I believe we will become even more united especially in music

U9-Music-A2-Blog-African Influence

When I consider the types of music with African influences, I like jazz, R&B, rock, and pop which includes almost anything from the 1980's. In fact, some of my favorite songs come from pop such as Michael Jackson's Thriller, R&B such as Terence Trent D'Arby's Wishing Well, and rock such as Duran Duran's Hungry like the wolves. These songs highlight very distinct artists whose works are still unique and forever classic. They are exciting to hear and each of these songs has really good rhythm. Each is very well written and each has original arrangements. They make me feel really good when I hear them but my favorite is Thriller, especially with the video which just makes the song come to life.

U9-Overview-A4-Porfolio:Create a Brochure

Come Explore Old and Modern Panama

Your Adventure is Waiting to Begin

Located in Central America and connecting Central America to South America is the beautiful county of Panama. This land has amazing beaches, rainforest, mangrove swamps, rivers, mountains of which the tallest is a dormant volcano named Volcan Baru. This country has much amazing architecture from the Cathedral of Old Panama dating to the 1500s’ with its solid gold altar to the modern city with its incredible towering buildings.

               

The solid gold altar-Cathedral of Old Panama                    Panama City has many architecture marvels

These pictures are compliment of www.google.com.

 

Panama has a strong arts and culture that is old and new in tradition. It has over ten museums that display many art forms such as pre-Columbian artifacts to modern contemporary art. Its art is a mix of indigenous to modern art pieces. One popular form of art is the Mola which is a woven artistic design on shirts for people to wear. There are also amazing crafts made by the people of Panama such as beautiful woven backets, taqua nut carvings, and many tribal indigenous fine crafts made by the Wounaan, Emberá, Kuna and Ngobe-Bugle tribes. There are many different dances and music which is a huge part of Panama and its festivals. One such form of tradition is the national tamborito which is the highest form of expression of Panamanian folk art which combines dance, music, lyrics, and native costume. This tradition is performed for all festivals and especially in early February when Panama Carnival is going on for everyone to see and celebrate. Panama invites the world to bask in its warm welcoming Latin American hospitality, fine arts, amazing history, architecture, and of course there is that little canal we have as well. Come see our beautiful, tropical resorts, islands, and many tours of the canal, islands, and native ruins.

 

Resources:  http://cultureofpanama.panamamediagroup.com/art , www.panart.com , http://thepanamaportal.com