A World of Literacies: The Soundtrack of Your Life |
||||
| In this creative process demonstration, participants will experience an aesthetic education lesson using the TPAC Education ArtSmart model: exploration of the creative process behind a work of art through context, inquiry, art making, and reflection. A series of activities will explore the artistic decision-making behind the Broadway musical “Jersey Boys,” as well as the music that forms the ‘soundtrack’ of our own lives. Participants will create a personal timeline of their lives linking key moments to associated musical memories. Working in pairs, bite-size portions of each other’s story will be adapted into a concept and/or scene for a musical theatre telling. This creative process parallels that of “Jersey Boys” creators Frankie Valli, the Four Seasons, the writers, and the director. The lesson illuminates the very deliberate artistic choices and distillation process used to adapt the band’s history into the Tony award winning show, along with the variety of theatrical storytelling devices used throughout. Simultaneously, participants will form a greater appreciation for the artistic possibilities inherent in the tales of their own lives and the endless variety of ways in which their stories may be shared. There will be a discussion of the synthesis of literacies presented throughout the work of art, the aesthetic education lesson itself, and student learning. Sharing the results of this same lesson in a recent school setting will illustrate how these literacies were present as students considered the impact of personal history and life possibilities in the trajectory of their own lives, extracting life events and patterns to create their own multi-media works of art. Participants will be asked to consider how the demonstrated aesthetic education model might well be at the center of 21st century learning. Discussion will focus on ways in which lessons incorporating inquiry, art making, and reflection spark ongoing interest and deeper exploration into the arts while providing students a conscious awareness of the many literacies required by their lives and of which they are capable of employing to make learning in many subject areas all the richer and more accomplished. |
||||
| Beth Anne Musiker is a lead teaching artist for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Education Department in Nashville. As a member of the TPAC Ed team for more than 14 years, she has authored guide books for HOT and ArtSmart programs; provided aesthetic education residencies for grades K–12; designed and facilitated professional development for teachers and her fellow teaching artists; and both taught and performed for various Inside/Out events for the Nashville community. In addition, Beth Anne is a recording artist, live performance coach, music director/conductor of high school musicals, and sometimes a director/choreographer, vocal arranger, and music producer. Beth Anne spent the early part of her career in New York City as a working singer, actress, and dancer. Her Nashville debut came while she was member of the national touring company of Roger Miller’s Big River, appearing inTPAC’s Broadway Series alongside the incomparable Mr. Miller. She earned her theatre degree from Northwestern University and has also trained extensively as a pianist and violinist. Her most recent venture is the creation and launch of StageSmart Teaching Artists, a new arts education and audience development initiative for touring Broadway shows. Beth Anne can be seen and heard throughout Nashville and at www.bethannemusiker.com.
|
|
|||
