Module 8 - Synthesizing

Saving the World with Children’s Theater

1. Write a white paper 

Creativity is an escape. It can save people. It is a way to process the bad and make more good.

–Eileen Peterson, Children’s Musical Theater Performer at Sierra Repertory Theater

In a world of advancing technology, an understanding and fascination with creativity is being lost to texting, video games, and apps of all sorts.  In education, students have short attention spans, boredom with our standardized curriculum, and a weariness to stick out from the norm or “cool” crowd.  How can we introduce creativity to our young generation and help them learn how captivating it can be? “The point of education must be to create whole people who, through their wholeness, can focus the accumulated wisdom of human experience into illuminated patches of splendor” (326); I believe that this splendor can be produced through children’s educational musicals. These musicals provide our younger generation with a large variety of experiences that cannot be taught in a classroom. 

For my project, I would like to propose the creation of a simplified drama program for elementary age students.  In particular, this program would be tailored to 4^th and 5^th grade students, but could be revisited later to include younger or older groups from this current range.  This drama program would take place during school hours, replacing recess one day a week.  It would be presented as a structured recess, as the students are still learning, exploring, playing, and having fun in this new-age classroom environment.  The final product of this drama program would be a short children’s theater musical that the students act, sing, and dance in, as well as have assisted in costume or set design/creation.

This drama program would involve art, music, dancing, and acting.  The goal of this new program is not to produce skilled artists that are young experts in their respective trades; it is to foster creativity and provide ample opportunities to demonstrate its value and importance in our educational and personal lives.  Developing and accessing this creativity at such a young age will hopefully allow these students to learn how these tools can be applied to other classes and activities outside of school.  I will use the creative tools presented by the Root-Bernsteins to explain how this new drama program can help students learn and excel in all classrooms.

Perceiving

The cognitive tool of perceiving is the ability to take in all the stimuli of an environment and respond to it honestly: taking what appealed to our sensory network and analyzing how it was understood, categorized, correlated, and appreciated.  In our elementary schools, we often focus on the importance of drilling universal facts into our students: memorizing rather than integrating this new knowledge.  Students must learn to perceive everything, and teachers too.  In an earlier project, I discussed the fascination of the Circle of Life sequence from Disney’s The Lion King.  One of the reasons that I find this sequence so popular is because I was introduced to it when I was a child.  From a cognitive standpoint, I could not filter what was important, make a bias about the music, or relate it with my own experiences because I was still in the realm of concrete thought.  I feel that perceiving is mastering this ability to purely take in all stimuli without distraction or bias.  We need to nurture these young, flexible minds and stretch them to new potentials.  Providing them with these opportunities to explore the arts is a great first step in increasing their perception of the world.

Patterning

Patterning is the cognitive organization of stimuli into the most understandable logical sequence to that individual; new discoveries can only be made with new patterns.  As we learn a musical for our final performance, students will be able to use their imagination to understand the pattern of the story and how the characters are placed into it.  Theater is a heightened opportunity to help children realize that their imagination is the most powerful tool they will ever have.  The theater that we create will not be silly and over-the-top nonsense, it will be real characters with real problems.  These students can learn how to imagine a fictional world around them.  It sounds ambitious, but they do that every day when they play at recess!  This is an opportunity to channel that creativity into a final product that is fun, fresh, and useful in their ability to pattern their perceptions of the world around them.

Abstracting

To build off the patterns that we began to experiment with and explore, we now seek to find how these patterns fit into larger concepts (the theme of the play, character motivations, etc.). Abstraction is simplifying something that we know then looking at it from a different perspective in order to learn and create more ideas about it.  This is a tough concept for our young students, but it can be taught through association with similar resources; “Creativity then, is the process of making alterations to, and new combinations with, pre-existing ideas and artifacts, to create something new” (Henriksen and Mishra, pg. 2). They have all seen The Little Mermaid and Frozen.  I will ask them why they liked those movies so much.  At first, their answers will mostly likely dwell on the visual elements, but then I will guide them towards deeper meanings and understandings.

Patterning, usually visual, can now be expanded to all of the senses. Only appealing to one sense is an incredibly weak presentation of creativity, and certainly not an influential one. What did Elsa do that made her so beloved? What can we learn from Sebastian the crab? When the show becomes more about the visual presentation than the story and message of the words on the page, then it is a flop.  If an actor, singer, musician, or anyone can discover this honesty in their art through abstracting it into simpler, larger concepts, relating it to themselves, juxtaposing it with prior knowledge, building and learning from these concepts, creativity will come from within – where it matters most.

Bodily Thinking

            Once we begin to explore the new world of theater experienced through all our senses, we can begin to feel it with our bodies through bodily thinking.  Bodily thinking is the process of expressing ourselves through actions and movements without the interference of bias, insecurity, and doubt from our minds.  It will be important for these students to welcome these impulses felt in the body to express themselves and their characters.  What can this physicalization teach us? These students begin to analyze how they feel in the play instead of how they look.  They must empathize with their character to truly understand his or her thoughts and actions in the play.  This is relevant to life as well.  In the difficult middle years of schooling, physical image and being “cool” are two of the most frequent topics on the minds of our students.  They can discover the emptiness of looking good and the wholeness of feeling good.

Modeling

Once these students discover the importance of thinking with their bodies, it’s time to move around and discover the workings of acting/dancing on the stage.  This can be achieved through modeling.  Modeling is altering the dimensions of an imaginative idea to make it more accessible and practical for the comprehension of future developers.  The activities that had previously been read from a script or sung by a piano are now taken to a new environment, one that involves risks. The only way to make a better product is to take risks.

Noguchi and his idea of “emotional space” can be utilized here.  Not only do children need to interpret and be fascinated by the theatrical elements planned from modeling, the staging of the musical can heighten this reality; they can transform mentally from being an audience member to living with the characters in their fictitious world. Importantly, this is unique to the venue of theater: “emotional space might exist on stage and around sculpture but not in a television tube” (218).  Through this interactive drama program, students can begin to discover their emotions and how it is healthy to express them, on and off the stage.

Play

“In play, things are whatever we want them to be” (255); children love to play. It’s what they do best.  Play is the conscious process to make our own rules and techniques to reach and discover the unexpected. This activity tests the imagination and nerve to step onto a stage into front of classmates, teachers, and family members. It is not an easy one – students have observed and imagined a new fictitious world, recognized patterns in the discovery of these abstract concepts, and applied bodily and dimensional thinking to efficiently present their ideas to others (through help from teachers).  And now, it is time to play. All of these tools must be consulted to effectively play and discover something new: “play breaks the rules of serious activity and establishes its own. Play is frivolous, wandering according to the whims of curiosity and interest” (248).  Play, in this drama program scenario, is structured.  However we are all still working towards the same goal – a deeper understanding and connection of the stimuli around us. 

Synthesizing

We must now use all of these tools concurrently: “synosia is the natural and necessary result of imaging, analogizing, modeling, playing, and transforming. Although an individual or group must work step-by-step through a series of transformations to define and create something new, when the process of invention is completed, the individual or group understand the creation as a whole” (307).  This drama program allows the amalgamation of intellect and the senses: “Only through their union can knowledge arise” –Immanuel Kant.  Not only do these pillars of learning work together, they allow us to create new ideas in all different venues in life: “We feel what we know and we know what we feel” (297).

A new understanding of ourselves and how we learn arises from the use of these tools.  On stage, we are able to take in all stimuli, organize it, connect it to larger concepts, and transform it into a creative, enjoyable product that is a creation of our own.  Ironically, though it is a creation of our own, it connects us more deeply to the world around us: “when [Nabokov’s] senses and his sensibility suddenly intermeshed, he was flooded with a feeling of communion between self and universe” (296).

Importance to Education/Conclusion

Though this new drama program may appear intimidating from the complicated process of developing creativity, we must remember that our young students create and explore worlds and characters of their own every day.  This is merely an opportunity to channel and focus that energy, imagination, and nerve into a product: a children’s musical that they perform for others.  Though the final product has been the focal point of this argument, the learning process to this product will include a variety of improvisational games and activities that will teach students to think purely and independently: “It is clear that combinatorial thinking cannot be forced or predicted, it must develop organically, determined and constrained by the unique resources that the individual brings to the creative process” (Henriksen and Mishra, pg 3).  As teachers, we must change how we teach to welcome creativity with open arms.  There are many teaching methods to try this: “to reach the widest range of minds, ideas in every discipline should be presented in many forms. Every idea can and should be transformed into several equivalent forms” (Root-Bernstein, 317).

The goal, though scary to accept to someone as practical as myself, is to live in a world of the unpredictable combinations. We cannot teach unpredictability in our world of education, but we can provide broad foundations for our fellow learners to see the “knobs and possibilities” in everything they create: “our task as educators is to provide learners with these diverse experiences to help them develop these broader perspectives. The future demands nothing less” (5).  Creativity is not about finding an answer; it is about discovering the possibilities along the way.

2. Develop an elevator pitch

I was inspired by the elevator analogy. So I made an mp3 that you could listen to on the radio in an elevator, in the car, etc. Here is the link to the Google Drive folder with the mp3 (Module 8-Elevator Pitch):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gEBWge0OuDckZvQmtKanUwVEU/view?usp=sharing

Script (if needed): Do you know the song ”Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid? You do? How old were you when you first heard it? And you still remember it? I do too.  Children’s musicals are something that we do not forget. As children, we are fascinated with these imaginative worlds and the colorful characters within it. In a world of iPhones and SnapChat, I propose that we introduce a dose of creativity into the minds of our youngest generation. And we do it through these children’s musicals. What if our students could be in these musicals? Dancing, singing, acting, and most importantly – creating.  It sounds like a difficult task, but don’t they do this everyday recess or in the hallway?  I would like to introduce a drama program that replaces recess one day a week with a structured recess, where we can learn how to channel this creativity, have some fun, and make the world a better place. Even better than “Under the Sea.”

3. Construct a message for Twitter

Hakuna matata. A meerkat and a warthog; two of our favorite teachers. It’s time to change our world with creativity. Join our revolution.

Module 7 - Play

The Imagination Ball

1) For this game, my students make a big circle and I stand in the middle. 

2) I state that for class today, I brought my special Imagination Ball.  I pull this ball out of my pocket, and the students giggle because they don’t see anything.

3) I then use mime to toss the ball up and down a few times, then I stretch it out, bring it up to my mouth, and blow up a “balloon” which I then begin to play with. The room grows silent, because they now see the imaginary ball. 

4) I take the balloon and mime its transformation into a “baseball bat.” I do a few practice swings.  All of this has been done with no words, because we don’t need them!  We are all connected through our imaginations and fascinated by the world of the unknown. 

5) I then give my “baseball bat” to a student and he goes to the center to transform the bat into another object.  We watch as this happens, eager to see what is created next.

6) Each student takes at least one turn going to the middle. 

7) After everyone has played with the imaginary ball, I take it, shrink it down, and put it back in my pocket.

8) Applaud the imaginative work of your students, and thank them for using their imaginations in such a bold and brave way.

A) Play is the conscious process to make our own rules and techniques to reach and discover the unexpected.

B) The most important part of children’s theater is imagination.  In my introduction with a new group of learners, I want to incorporate this element right away.  With my current learners, I am often struggling against the language barrier that separates my students and myself.  Sometimes many of these learners can hardly state how old they are and where they are from.  Korea is also a very shy culture, and students at first are not eager to participate in a class setting that is different from the traditional lecture or presentational style. So I developed a game that is both playful and meaningful for them, but also connects us all through the power of imagination: “play breaks the rules of serious activity and establishes its own. Play is frivolous, wandering according to the whims of curiosity and interest” (248).

This activity ties into the world of play because we each have our different image and design of the objects created by the imaginary ball (whether it’s a balloon, a baseball bat, etc.).  However, we are all still working towards the same goal – a deeper understanding and connection of the stimuli around us.  I developed this activity because any age group can play it.  It takes no words, so it can also be applied to all ESL learners (or anyone for that matter).  There is no right or conventional answer in the activity: “in play, things are whatever we want them to be” (255).

C) I developed this activity because it effectively nurtures a healthy, productive environment of play by building upon the foundational tools already discussed in this course: “No single tool for thinking ever suffices“ (273).  I can easily connect it with my course topic. When I think about my deepest memories from grade school, I remember the children’s musicals and plays that I got to see at my school.  The small tours that traveled to my school brought a world of imagination with them.  They allowed me to follow a story and challenged me to use my imagination to invest in the world of the play, to literally believe that what I was seeing was real. 

This activity tests the imagination just as these children’s theater musicals do.  It is not an easy one – students observe and imagine the images being mimed in front of them, recognize patterns in the development of these new models, and apply bodily and dimensional thinking to efficiently present their ideas to others.  All of these tools must be consulted to effectively play and discover something new.  An activity like this is incredibly important to Korean culture, where theater and the arts are only for the select few admitted into the training academies. “The only difficulty with playing – and it’s a big one – is being able to remain enough of a child to do it” (263); this simple, short activity that allows students of any age to find their inner child and freedom that comes with it – and express it.

Here are some pictures from an adult class that I had at English Village. Such a neat experience working with them.  The members of this adult class were all Korean teachers. They were eager to share this activity with their students.

Module 6 - Modeling

A) Modeling is altering the dimensions of an imaginative idea to make it more accessible and practical for the comprehension of future developers.

B) The topic of children’s theater is full of models and dimensional thinking: costume and set renderings, lighting charts, staging plots, and more.  These condensed versions of what happens on stage are important to discuss and adjust before full-size elements are constructed.  In the creative process, these models are imperative to the foundation of the success and reception of the show: “Perhaps the most important thing that modeling does is to provide the modeler with complete control of a situation, object, or idea – or, conversely, to reveal explicitly where control or understanding is lacking” (230).  This “understanding” and meshing of all of these elements into one organic unit is a challenging process, especially when appealing to an audience of 1^st graders with imaginations larger than our own!

However, this is where Noguchi and his idea of “emotional space” can be utilized.  Not only do children need to interpret and be fascinated by the theatrical elements planned from modeling, the staging of the musical can heighten their reality; they can transform mentally from being an audience member to living with the characters in their fictitious world. Importantly, this is unique to the venue of theater: “emotional space might exist on stage and around sculpture but not in a television tube” (218).  The concept of dimensional thinking also requires us to utilize perspective, which amalgamates with emotional thinking.

CEP 818 - Modeling Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnr0QiLAIoM&list=UUAPQnifpeRyu5S-7h4lIJKQ

C) For this project, the concept may seem quite simple – the delivery of an introductory line from various points in the room (or for our imagination’s sake, a stage).  But even 5 steps backward can create an entirely new presence on stage, one that is less warm and familiar.  Each of these perspectives is different.  They illustrate the importance of planning out stage models and preparing actors to rehearse it.

I chose to do this because of my current workplace.  At English village, our shows are very different from those currently being performed in United States. Visually, they may look quite similar to a standard children’s musical – colorful, bright, and full of life.  However, our shows involve a dangerous element: audience participation. I choose the adjective dangerous because many elements of the show become improv-based. The audience’s ability to comprehend the story and assist the characters on stage is different with each show. Though nerve-racking at times, that is why working here is so thrilling. Every day and show and scene is new and organic.  The Root-Bernstein’s argue, “space itself contains part of the emotional message” (218).  For these audience participation bits, we enter the audience to seek their help.  Many of our patrons cannot speak English well, but they can still feel the emotions and energy of the moment in an amplified environment.

When I return to the states, I hope to continue working in children’s theatre.  I have experienced how effective the altering of dimensional thinking has on our audiences.  I want to urge the actors and directors I work with in the future to try out these methods, because the only way to make a better model is to take risks.

The Creative "i" - Architecture of Space

PART 1

For this project, I chose to take pictures of our Concert Hall Mainstage at the English Village. I chose this location because it is the venue that I most frequently work in, and the location that I love the most. This theater is unique because it is not actually a theater at all; it is a classroom, a 600-seat classroom for ESL students of all ages and nationalities.  The Concert Hall has many functions.  It hosts our mainstage musical but also operates as a venue for orientations, evening activities, movie nights, trivia nights, talent shows, and student presentations. It is arguably the most active facility at EV. 

In Korea, theaters are not common. In the United States, almost every high school has a performing arts facility for concerts and shows.  However, there are only a select number of arts schools in Korea that have the funding to build the necessary facilities to host such events.  This performance venue is an exceptional sight for a Korean.  Many of our students have never seen a show before – even those at the high school level!  They have never stepped on stage, performed a song or dance for their friends, or given a presentation.  This venue gives the conservative Korean culture a chance to open up and learn more about confidence, courage, and power of theater. 

Physically, our stage is striking:  battens above full of lights, a stage bigger than most Broadway venues, and small bits of our set for our latest production, Merlin and the Sword in the Stone. But in reality, that is not what is most notable about this space – it is the learning that takes place within it.  As a performer at this theater, our shows constantly engage the audience with questions or physical activities so they can be a part of the stories we tell.  The language is simple but the characters are real. Even though every word of English may not be understood, these students are still learning, loving, and experiencing something unlike never before in their lives.

PART 2

I attached a picture of the outside of the Concert Hall as well in this assignment.  All of the buildings at EV are similar to the Concert Hall, massive and outstanding in their Western-style architecture.  I show pictures of my village to my Korean friends in Seoul and they respond, “That’s in Korea?!?”

At English Village, the goal is to mimic real life foreign experiences geared to improving English fluency.  This is accomplished through elements such as: Western options in the cafeteria, architecture and interior decor, Western bathrooms, and of course, a large number of native-English speaking teachers from across the globe.  Students are challenged to only speak English upon entering the castle walls (literally), encouraged by their surroundings.  I found similarities with this goal of English Village and Alexander’s view of architecture from the reading:  “Alexander seeks to empower users and inhabitants of a living space to develop, shape, and change their own learning environments around the pre-existing organic interactions in that space” (pg. 6).

What I’ve found from working here and from reading about the importance of a learning space is that – it works. Students know that they are in a different environment, and they step up to the challenge. They feel like they have escaped to a foreign, English-speaking country.  In my job as an Edutainer, they are awed by the spectacle of a state-of-the-art theater facility and in response, engage in the musical and seek out what can be learned in it.  For the future, I know I will not always be at an English Village-type setting.  However, I can still recognize the magnitude of a fun, engaging physical learning environment.

Module 5 - Bodily Thinking

A) Bodily thinking is the process of expressing yourself through actions and movements without the interference of bias, insecurity, and doubt from one’s mind.

B) I wanted to try two different experiments with this project, both involving choreography. For the first, I created a choreographed routine to the song, “Green Eggs and Ham” from Seussical the Musical.  The style of this song and dance is comparable to many other high-energy children’s theater numbers.  After I created the choreography, I took a step back to think about how it would read if I removed the music and changed the energy of the piece.  It still functions as an art form, but carries a strangely different message without the spunky music and purposeful positive energy. 

For my second experiment, I tried improv choreography – something I had never tried before! As a dancer that lives within the parameters of 8-counts and aesthetically pleasing routines, I managed to strip that away and kinesthetically respond to the music with honesty and passion.  I focused on the discoveries I was making in the music and the story that I heard it telling.  It transformed, rather surprisingly, into a dance piece that emphasized the many uses and wonders of our hands. See if you can figure out all the verbs I am doing with them during the dance! Often times in children’s musical theater, we get caught up in the routine of repetition. After countless shows, we rely on automaticity to carry us through dances.  But why can’t we make discoveries within these dances everyday, even if it technically looks the same?

C) My first experiment that separated the movement from the music made me realize the close connection between bodily thinking and empathy.  In performances of children’s musical theater, we often feel the empathy of the scene work and the emotions that arise from the dialogue.  However, these emotions can be felt in our bodies as well.  Particularly in dances, it is easy to focus on “getting it right.”  Having turned out feet, landing properly from a leap, or sticking a pirouette are all wonderful concerns of a beginner dancer.  However, as one continues to dance through the years, they cannot continue to find enjoyment in it unless they seek a deeper level of understanding within it – this is the role of bodily thinking.  It challenges the dancer to think with the body, while also empathizing with the choreography to understand how to properly perform it.  There is always room to discover more in a dance and in this field, even if the technique is “correct.”

My second experiment is relevant to children’s musical theater because it separates the actor’s mind from their body.  An actor, as any other profession can be too, becomes blocked creatively by “getting in one’s head.”  They start to analyze how they look in the play instead of how they feel.  They must empathize with their character to truly understand his or her thoughts and actions in the play.  Dance is wonderful escape to the world of kinesthetic thinking.  We must ask ourselves: What is the purpose of these dances? What are they radiating – celebration, conflict, isolation?  It is easy to become programmed to do the dances with grace and technique, but there is so much more to discover within them that we do not know. It is time to face the fear of this unknown.

CEP - Bodily Thinking Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHxCoHlCWWQ&list=UUAPQnifpeRyu5S-7h4lIJKQ

This video contains 4 parts:

1) Seussical choreography with no music

2) Seussical choreography with music but contrasting energy of performance

3) Seussical choreography as if it were in a performance

4) Improv choreography to Latika's Theme

Module 4 - Abstraction

A) Abstraction is simplifying something that we know then looking at it from a different perspective in order to learn and create more ideas about it.

B) The specific abstraction I chose was storytelling.  In musical theater, the story line can be lost to spectacle.  When we reflect on shows after watching them, we often discuss the shiny, sequined costumes, the incredible voices of the leading actors, or the fireworks, fog, and magic of special effects.  When the show becomes more about the visual presentation than the story and message of the words on the page, then it is a flop.  Though audiences are stunned by these theatrical elements, they are left feeling empty and unsatisfied (whether cognizant of it or not) from the lack of connection with the characters.  I chose this abstraction because it is very important to every member of my field. Whether designing lights, building costumes, or composing music, the production team can use the words of the writer to ground their work in truth and sincerity.  The costumes, for example, may be flashy, but they can also move the plot forward and assist the words on the page.

For my first abstraction, I took a picture of a celebration on the Cheonggyecheon Stream near City Hall in Seoul.  The Cheonggyecheon Stream is 20 feet below road level, but still smack in the middle of the busiest roadway in Seoul.  Families, couples, and friends frequent the Cheonggycheon Stream because of its relaxing atmosphere and rushing waters that drown out the buzz of Seoul.  I stumbled upon a festival this past week.  I did not know what the people were celebrating, but I didn’t need to.  I thought instantly of the idea of storytelling.  I realized that every celebration of our history is now a story; something that we carry with us as part of our heritage and culture.  The blue umbrellas, lovely autumn day, and the mother gazing on at her two children splashing in the water made me smile as I saw the power of a story presented in this new light.

For my second abstraction, I made a diagram of out of Korean currency constructed in the shape of a tree.  The larger coins are the trunk, the foundation of the story, from which many, many (important) branches can be built.  However, though the branches may grow and stretch farther from the base, the family will always be connected through these foundational fibers.  I used coins rather than buttons, M&Ms, etc, because I wanted to present an irony of storytelling. A story, no matter how far from the tree, will always be priceless.

C) Often times, I get caught up in the spectacle of musical theater. The athleticism of the dances, the excitement in the vocals, and consumption with what I look like.  As we have learned through the reading, only appealing to one sense is an incredibly weak presentation of creativity, and certainly not an influential one.  I realize that abstractions must be realized and pondered before art is created. Sometimes one must create art to learn how to abstract it.  However, the reason for the creativity is always immensely deep.  If an actor, singer, musician, anyone can discover this honesty in their art through abstracting it into simpler, larger concepts, relating it to themselves, juxtaposing it with prior knowledge, building and learning from these concepts, creativity will come from within – where it matters most.

The Creative "i" - Variations on a Theme

PART 1: Choose a song and change its lyrics.

You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban

Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJxrX42WcjQ

Verse 1

When I am down and, oh, my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

Chorus
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Verse 2
There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

Chorus
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Chorus
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Chorus
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

End line
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Altered lyrics: A Father’s Love

Here is a link to a mp3 of me singing this new version.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0gEBWge0OuDbVhKeG1rZzNEY1U&usp=sharing

Verse 1

When I was young and you would hold me closely,

I’d look to you, my eyes were open wide.

And then you’d smile and kiss my forehead softly,

Saying “hush-a-bye. My baby, don’t you cry.”

Chorus 1

You watched me grow, as I became a young man.

You’d hold me up, my arms stretched towards the sky.

Everyday, when I came home to see you.

Your face would grin, a twinkle in your eye.

Verse 2

Now I am old and you are still here with me.

I look to you, my eyes still open wide.

I see you smile and feel you look upon me.

You’ll always be my teacher and my guide.

Chorus 1

You watched me grow, as I became a young man.

You’d hold me up, my arms stretched towards the sky.

Everyday, when I came home to see you.

Your face would grin. I always wondered why.

Chorus 2

You taught me strength when I was at my weakest.

You taught me love when I was all alone.

I followed you, through every day and hour,

When you were here, I knew that I was home.

Chorus 2

You taught me strength when I was at my weakest.

You taught me love when I was all alone.

I followed you, through every day and hour,

When you were here, I knew that I was home.

End line

A father’s love will always lead you home.

PART 2: Summarize in 200 words or less how you see what you have learned about the creative process, through the reading and assignment, that you could apply to your own personal or professional life.

I had never done anything like this assignment before. The only time I re-write lyrics is when I accidentally forget them when I’m singing along with the radio.  At first, I was only seeking out similarities between my new lyrics with the old ones.  I was examining the easy observable qualities: rhyme, rhythm, and content.  Then I tried to separate myself completely from the song (You Raise Me Up) and listen to the music as though I had never heard it before and it functioned as a completely independent art form.  Though I was not 100% focused on this new cognitive process for 100% of the song, I did not expect to be. I simply wanted to attempt to abstract myself from the song that I knew, and I loved it.  When I simplified it, what was left? What did it open up inside of me? Quite a lot.

This newfound freedom led to a surge of creativity.  In the music, I heard something that made me think of my dad.  I cannot write what it was, but it opened a passageway of memory and love in our relationship.  I was soon challenged to then funnel the ideas and feelings that were radiating from this abstraction into the order and structure of a song.  Not only that, I attempted to write words that would “set up an analogous state of being in someone else” (147).  I could sing for hours about my own stories with my dad, but I needed to go deeper.  I practiced internal and external attention (199) and soon realized that if an artist can truly observe, imagine, and feel the thoughts and needs of others, they will unmistakably appeal to their souls and senses.


Additional Thoughts (including the Henriksen and Mishra article)

“Creativity then, is the process of making alterations to, and new combinations with, pre-existing ideas and artifacts, to create something new” (Henriksen and Mishra, pg. 2).  In this project, our mission was to re-write the lyrics of a song that we were familiar with.  It was a great challenge to take a song that we have known and understood, and use the creative tools that we’ve encountered so far (perception, patterning, and abstraction) to build a new, unique work.  The focus was not on the creation of new lyrics, but rather the awareness of the broad foundation that we have to work with: “People with a wider range of knowledge and experience have richer concepts to build on, and hence the potential to see more knobs or possibilities than those with narrower foundations” (3). If the focus was instead only on lyric revision to replace the original words of the song, then the creativity becomes forced: “It is clear that combinatorial thinking cannot be forced or predicted, it must develop organically, determined and constrained by the unique resources that the individual brings to the creative process” (3).

This project allowed me to see more possibilities.  I was able to reflect on my experiences and prior knowledge to construct an individualized product.  The goal, though scary to accept to someone as practical as myself, is to live in a world of the “unpredictable combinations” (1). We cannot teach unpredictability in our world of education, but we can provide broad foundations for our fellow learners to see the “knobs and possibilities” in everything they create: “our task as educators is to provide learners with these diverse experiences to help them develop these broader perspectives. The future demands nothing less” (5).  Creativity is not about finding an answer; it is about discovering the possibilities along the way.

REVISED LYRICS

Verse 1

When I was young, I feared the word creative.

I sought a “spark.” I thought it was easy.

I thought for hours of what I could invent

But then I knew, I could simply be me.

Chorus
And then I learned that I needed to perceive

The world around. There’s always something new.

Everyday, each thing we see and hear

Can lead us to a world that we find true.

Verse 2
As I grew old, I tackled my new fears.

I knew my past would help me everyday.

These memories built on existing ideas

Would give me strength, and help me see new ways.

Chorus
And then I knew that I needed to perceive

The world around. There’s always something new.

Everyday, each thing we see and hear

Can lead us to a world that we find true.

Chorus
And now I see, the possibility

Connecting things within the world around me

I am not scared to think of something different.

In fact, I love the difficulty.

End line
Prepare the mind for creativity.