The experience of creating a "mashup" forced me to think in a way I rarely, if ever, have thought in before. As much of a pain as it was to work on the mashup, it made me appreciate the connectivity of different aspects of my thinking unlike most school assignments (the only one the is even comparable is the second semester english final last year). Through the process I reaffirmed a lesson I'd learned during the short story process about thinking through a project, rather than working through it, but the ultimate takeaway from this unique assignment is how it made me look at the progression of my thoughts, and really how easy it is to relate the critical thinking I do for school and literature, to my everyday analysis of art and culture.
During my reflection on my short story writing experience, I noted that I'd learned it's better usually better to approach an assignment by simply "doing it;" whether it be just putting pen to paper and writing, or scouring a book for important passages, it's better to be practical rather than theoretical and just sit around thinking about what you're going to do. This is easier said than done; I've always been someone who carefully plans out in advance the work I'm going to be doing, and how I want it to look. It's not easy for me to just put the ball i motion when I don't have a clear idea. This has proven to be an extremely inconvenient way of working, and this mashup assignment did not disprove that. I tried meticulously planning out the steps I'd take, starting with looking for quotes from Jane Eyre, then moving on to pop culture, etc. but it didn't take me long to realize that this was getting me nowhere. After not being able to pinpoint what I actually wanted to focus on without actually looking for quotes (I was just thinking of what section possible quotes could come from), I ended up scrapping my idea and starting completely over with a new theme as the basis of my mashup. I eventually did get my feet set, and I got into a groove of working, but I disrupted the organic flow of my thoughts from the beginning of my project, and ended up putting a lot of time and effort into something that just went to waste in the end, which is a mistake I've made far too often. There is something to be said for how what I go through is part of the "story writing process," but I think it's time for me to adopt a more "write first, ask questions later"type of attitude. Like I said before though, once I got into a groove, it became a much easier assignment.
It seemed like a daunting task initially, to relate all the literature we've read this year, to Jane Eyre, and also to pop culture that surrounds us, providing original commentary and analysis all the while to tie it all together. Frankly, I didn't know where to begin. After deciding that I should just do the easy parts first, finding obvious Jane Eyre quotes and cultural references, the work got progressively easier. I started to appreciate how my mind jumped from one area of thinking to another completely unrelated area, in a natural, smooth transition. Finding a quote in jane Eyre would trigger my mind to shift to a set of song lyrics that carry the same meaning, a shift that I wouldn't think to normally make if I were simply reading the passage or listening to the song, but in the context of a mashup, things seemed to gel together much easier than I would've ever they could. This made collecting elements for the mashup not nearly as difficult as I thought it'd be, and at some points I was truly intrigued by how my thoughts flowed from one region of thinking to another. That being said, fitting all the elements together for the actual presentation of the mashup was way harder than I would've thought; re-contextualizing them in a way that made sense on paper, not just in my head, proved to be pretty challenging, and there are some aspects of my final mashup that I wish I could switch around right now, upon further review. In spite of that, I thought the mashup was actually a really cool (much cooler than I thought it'd be when I originally looked at the project) way of looking at the interconnectivity of our thoughts, and it made me think in ways that made sense, but were totally unconventional, and not how I'd normally go about analyzing the individual elements. My one complaint would be that I felt really pressed for time, so I'd strongly suggest either coordinating it so it doesn't fall during the same week asa massive history test and Chinese project next year, or just giving students more time to complete it, because I think if this project is going to be done, it should at least be done right and not curtailed because of obstacles in students' school lives. But that's just food for thought I suppose, this project was actually worth doing from the standpoint that it made us think way outside of the box, challenging both our creativity and our analytical abilities, something that probably doesn't happen enough in high school classes; the synthesis between the creative right side and methodical left side of the brain can yield some really cool results (which is why I'm looking forward to seeing what my classmates came up with, it should be really interesting)
April 27, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Thoughts on A Midsummer Night's Dream
To start off, I'd just like to say that I really enjoyed the production Chicago's Shakespeare Theatre put on of A Midsummer Night's Dream. While I could go on praising the play as a work of literature, and commending Shakespeare brilliance, that wouldn't do his particular production justice. The play is without a doubt a fantastic work of poetry and writing, and truly entertaining, but I think what set this production apart from most others in just any old theatre is the unique interpretation of the director, and the caliber of the actors' portrayal of Shakespeare's characters.
It was easy to tell that both the actors and the director were very familiar and comfortable with Shakespeare. I was looking through the playbill and I noticed a section that said the director chose to switch the order of the first two scenes, making the meeting of the Mechanicals happen before we're introduced to Hermia who's asking for her father's permission to marry Lysander. This change didn't really change the plot or feel of the play at all, but the fact that the director was able and wanted to switch around some scenes obviously showed that he had a clear vision and direction for the play, and that he was making conscious, knowledgable decisions as a director, which is something I really appreciated because it's easy for a director to be outshined by his cast or the original writer, but I had a lot of respect for this director's vision and get an idea of how his thoughts worked without ever actually meeting him. The actors too seemed very at ease with the language and atmosphere of Shakespeare, allowing the play to open up and develop itself without having to force entertainment or make the characters seem to distant from real life. I was a little caught off guard in the beginning, but they did a fantastic job of easing the audience into the story and letting Shakespeare's shenanigans unfold naturally.
The unique setting of the play was initially a little off-putting, usually when we (or at least I) picture a Shakespearean play in my head, it's not set in the 1920's. I did come to appreciate this aspect though, for a number of reasons. First of all it showed the director's creativity and his ability to bring his own interpretation to an audience (something I really envy), and it also gave him the opportunity to introduce a modern connection to the 400 year old play: Sigmund Freud, doubling as the mischievious fairy Puck. The first character we see in the whole play is Sigmund Freud, and in some respects the last character we see in this particular production is Sigmund Freud (Puck took the last bow). The decision to have Puck emerge out of Sigmund Freud's image was not only chilling but brilliant. The synthesis between Freud's analysis of dreams, and Shakespeare's play on the interactions between our dream state and our realities seemed flawless. Using Freud's face as a way of showing the proposed relation between our conscious aspirations and what is acted out in our subconscious not only displayed the director's creativity, but also seemed to breathe new life into a quickly aging play, kept young by Shakespeare's (and in this perspective Freud's) ability to speak to human nature as a whole, not just individual characters.
The play would be lost, however, without it's individual characters solely because of how much entertainment they provide. Usually my mindset when going to see our read Shakespeare is, "he's a master of the human mind so be on the look out for cool ideas/archetypes he points out." All of this was forgotten in the second act of A Midsummer Night's Dream, not because it became irrelevant, but because I was absolutely laughing my face off. The Bard's writing is hysterical, but the actors that brought it to life and made the 400 year old jokes work today deserve a lot of the credit. Some of the looks you could catch the actors giving the audience (particularly the actor's who played Odeon and Titania/ The Duke and Hippolyta) brought not only more modern relatability to the play, but also a slightly satirical comedic flare that's usually not associated with stage productions. Overall, I really did appreciate the way the director injected some modern elements, and his own modern backdrop to the play, and I was more than entertained by the hilariousness of the plot and the actors who brought it to life. It's a shame that we saw the play on the last day of its run, because I'd even consider going back to see it a second time, but I look forward to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's next production, as I'm sure it will be equally impressive and I'm really starting to like that place; hopefully I can look forward to more fieldtrips of their productions (ehem ehem Academy teachers).
These trips to the Shakespeare Theatre are really fostering my appreciation and enjoyment of Shakespeare and, of course, it's always nice to spend a day with the Academy
April 6th, 2011
It was easy to tell that both the actors and the director were very familiar and comfortable with Shakespeare. I was looking through the playbill and I noticed a section that said the director chose to switch the order of the first two scenes, making the meeting of the Mechanicals happen before we're introduced to Hermia who's asking for her father's permission to marry Lysander. This change didn't really change the plot or feel of the play at all, but the fact that the director was able and wanted to switch around some scenes obviously showed that he had a clear vision and direction for the play, and that he was making conscious, knowledgable decisions as a director, which is something I really appreciated because it's easy for a director to be outshined by his cast or the original writer, but I had a lot of respect for this director's vision and get an idea of how his thoughts worked without ever actually meeting him. The actors too seemed very at ease with the language and atmosphere of Shakespeare, allowing the play to open up and develop itself without having to force entertainment or make the characters seem to distant from real life. I was a little caught off guard in the beginning, but they did a fantastic job of easing the audience into the story and letting Shakespeare's shenanigans unfold naturally.
The unique setting of the play was initially a little off-putting, usually when we (or at least I) picture a Shakespearean play in my head, it's not set in the 1920's. I did come to appreciate this aspect though, for a number of reasons. First of all it showed the director's creativity and his ability to bring his own interpretation to an audience (something I really envy), and it also gave him the opportunity to introduce a modern connection to the 400 year old play: Sigmund Freud, doubling as the mischievious fairy Puck. The first character we see in the whole play is Sigmund Freud, and in some respects the last character we see in this particular production is Sigmund Freud (Puck took the last bow). The decision to have Puck emerge out of Sigmund Freud's image was not only chilling but brilliant. The synthesis between Freud's analysis of dreams, and Shakespeare's play on the interactions between our dream state and our realities seemed flawless. Using Freud's face as a way of showing the proposed relation between our conscious aspirations and what is acted out in our subconscious not only displayed the director's creativity, but also seemed to breathe new life into a quickly aging play, kept young by Shakespeare's (and in this perspective Freud's) ability to speak to human nature as a whole, not just individual characters.
The play would be lost, however, without it's individual characters solely because of how much entertainment they provide. Usually my mindset when going to see our read Shakespeare is, "he's a master of the human mind so be on the look out for cool ideas/archetypes he points out." All of this was forgotten in the second act of A Midsummer Night's Dream, not because it became irrelevant, but because I was absolutely laughing my face off. The Bard's writing is hysterical, but the actors that brought it to life and made the 400 year old jokes work today deserve a lot of the credit. Some of the looks you could catch the actors giving the audience (particularly the actor's who played Odeon and Titania/ The Duke and Hippolyta) brought not only more modern relatability to the play, but also a slightly satirical comedic flare that's usually not associated with stage productions. Overall, I really did appreciate the way the director injected some modern elements, and his own modern backdrop to the play, and I was more than entertained by the hilariousness of the plot and the actors who brought it to life. It's a shame that we saw the play on the last day of its run, because I'd even consider going back to see it a second time, but I look forward to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's next production, as I'm sure it will be equally impressive and I'm really starting to like that place; hopefully I can look forward to more fieldtrips of their productions (ehem ehem Academy teachers).
These trips to the Shakespeare Theatre are really fostering my appreciation and enjoyment of Shakespeare and, of course, it's always nice to spend a day with the Academy
April 6th, 2011
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