Drama and Visual Arts: Unit Review

A response mainly says how you felt. An interpretation makes a claim about what the drama means, backed by evidence and connections to your own and others' ideas and experiences.

The group forms two lines; a character facing a decision walks slowly between them while each person speaks a thought, advice or warning; then the character decides in role.

Example issue: Who is responsible when a private video spreads? Perspectives: Theo (hurt and embarrassed), Maya ("just a joke," feels guilty), Sam ("everybody posts stuff like that"), Priya (caught between friends). Any three.

What do they want? Why? What are they afraid of?

Prop: earbuds with no music playing (or a hood pulled up). Blocking: he moves away whenever someone steps toward him, or sits alone upstage. Other reasonable answers are fine.

Staying fully in character in voice, body and focus, even when something unexpected happens.

Role/character, relationship, time and place, tension, focus and emphasis.

Stage left.

Ent. UR, X DC.

Arrange chairs in pairs in rows facing the same way, like bus seats; actors sit, sway and hold on as the "bus" turns. Any clear use of available materials.

Out of role they brainstorm, plan and decide; in role they test ideas through improvisation. Moving between them shapes the drama's direction together.

A hint early in the drama about something that happens later. Example: Maya joking, "One day I'm going to get a video of you singing!" (or the music stand wobbling in an early scene).

Tension: any two of sound effects (pings, heartbeat, ticking), sudden silence, dimming lights, a long pause, slow motion. Focus: any two of a spotlight, a freeze, eye lines, levels, stillness/contrast, a single sound.

Example: "I stayed in role during the long pause (strength), but I need to project my voice when facing upstage (area for improvement)." Look for specific details.

Generate, explore, select, shape, rehearse, present (and reflect).

A docudrama is a drama based on real events and people, often using their real words. Verbatim means word for word.

Any two: get consent, keep words accurate, be respectful, protect privacy.

Theatre Passe Muraille actors, with director Paul Thompson, lived and worked with farm families near Clinton, Ontario, and built the play from their real stories.

Only Good Deeds: how you live matters more than wealth, friends or popularity.

In both, at certain times, only men performed, including women's roles (onnagata in kabuki; boys and young men in Elizabethan theatre).

Social: brings people together and starts conversations. Economic: jobs and visitors spending money locally. Cultural: shares stories, languages and identity (for example, imagineNATIVE presents work by Indigenous artists).

Calm: horizontal or gently curving lines. Danger: diagonal or jagged lines.

Lines that come together in the distance; they create depth.

Progressive rhythm.

Swirling, curving, repeated lines in the sky create rhythm and movement, so the sky feels alive and restless.

Two; vertical edges (corners, door and window sides) stay vertical.

Outdoor shadows are lit by the blue sky, and cool or complementary colours in shadows make forms look rounder and scenes deeper.

Modulation, stippling, blending.

Example: blue, blue-green, green: calm or cool. (Or yellow, yellow-orange, orange: warm and cozy.)

Painting a thin transparent layer over a dry layer, so colours mix in the viewer's eye.

RGB: red, green, blue, light on screens. CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, key (black), ink for printing.

Yellow.

Similarity, continuity, alignment, proximity.

Divide the picture into a 3-by-3 grid; put the horizon on a third line and important things on the lines or where they cross.

To keep it interesting: everything belongs, but the eye has something to explore.

Symbol: dove (peace). Icon: magnifying glass. Logo: school crest. Sign: red octagon (stop).

Any two: simple, memorable, readable small, works in one colour, fits its audience.

A Haudenosaunee wampum belt with two parallel purple rows on white, often explained as a canoe and a ship travelling side by side, each on its own path, in peace, friendship and respect.

Kenojuak Ashevak, 1960.

Closed form is compact and solid; open form has openings so space flows through it. Example: Louise Bourgeois's Maman (1999), a wire sculpture or a mobile.

Art that transforms a whole space, often one viewers walk into or take part in. Example: Rebecca Belmore's Speaking to Their Mother (1991), a huge wooden megaphone people used to speak to the land.

Any one: Bill Reid's The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (Haida stories, at Vancouver's airport as The Jade Canoe); kente stoles at graduations; the Métis flag; Haida formline art; Inuit carving and printmaking.

Example: "I can explain how colour creates mood (strength), but I need to ask about culture and context before deciding what a symbol means (area for improvement)." Look for specific details.