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Tapping Surrealism for Creative Ideas David The stairs are out of order, please use the lift: Tapping AS/A2 Surrealism for creative ideas David Porter AS/A2 Introduction David Porter is former Head of Performing Arts at Kirkley High School, Surrealism is an art/literature movement from the 1920s which sits well with the Lowestoft, teacher and one-time genre-blending approaches of today. It has a broad scope in performance and is children’s theatre performer. Freelance characterised by the juxtaposition of incongruous images which include dream or writer, blogger and editor, he is a senior fantasy elements from the subconscious mind. assessor for A level performance studies, IGSCE drama moderator and GCSE drama At first glance, Surrealism has little place in our contemporary exam and examiner. assessment environment. However, it’s a fun and challenging way into the performing arts in general, and drama in particular at any age. Albert Smirnov The exam boards’ new AS/A level specifications require study of texts and plays from different periods; the work of varied practitioners; devising; deconstructing and wide contexts. Surrealism as a stimulus introduces team work, problem solving and innovative creativity in students at the outset, as warm-up for exam work or as end of term fun. This scheme will look at some bizarre, absurd and off-beat ideas. It’s worth also looking at my previous scheme Using Postmodernism in Drama and Theatre Making on the Teaching Drama website. Learning objectives In the surreal world almost anything is By the end of this scheme students will have: possible f Considered Surrealism’s approaches to the performing arts f Deconstructed, analysed and devised surrealistic material f Put ideas into social, historical and cultural contexts Definitions It is easy to get lost in definitions and f Stimulated creative thinking, problem-solving and team work through examples; http://www.Surrealism. performance org has some simple explanations and f Developed devising and performing skills using surrealistic material. illustrations. Scheme in summary Lesson 1: Opening the mind Related performance term An introduction to the mocking, non-traditional ideas behind Dadaism, the Absurdism: something at odds with forerunner of Surrealism, to open minds to this unexpected, often offensive, reality, ridiculous, false, ludicrous, always challenging art. farcical, preposterous, illogical, senseless, laughable, incongruous, Lesson 2: Getting to grips with Surrealism irrational, meaningless, unreasonable Taking first steps to apply some surrealistic concepts into a piece of group devised and idiotic. work, including metaphor and automatism and the nature of truth. Lesson 3: The unconscious mind Using some of the psychological theory, particularly on dreams and memory, that Descriptions underpin Surrealism as a concept, and developing collaborative drama from them. This genre is not liked by everyone; some call it mad, crazy, pointless, silly, a Lesson 4: The sane person in an insane world joke, foolish, insulting, patronising, self- Develops the idea through devised drama that as everything becomes ever more indulgent, abstract, obscure and time surreal in an apparently normal world, can anyone hold onto sanity – and what is wasting. All of these may be useful in creating drama. sanity anyway? Lesson 5: Let’s have a show! Bringing together the best of the learning (the most enjoyable) and developing it into a shared performance that pushes the boundaries a little bit further. www.teaching-drama.co.uk Teaching Drama · Summer term 1 · 2015/16 1 Scheme of work|AS/A2 Lesson 1: Opening the mind Resources f The story of Dada Learning objectives http://www.theartstory.org/ By the end of the lesson students will have: movement-dada.htm f Considered the advantages of the avant-garde f What is Dada (1916-1923)? http://arthistory.about.com/cs/ f Created performance from the everyday, drawing on Dadaist concepts arthistory10one/a/dada.htm f Enhanced presentation skills f The Tate f Developed group collaboration. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online- resources/glossary/d/dada Warm-up (15 mins) f Pairs: From a box of props, choose 3 items at random and make a short scene which uses them logically. Avant-garde movements f Small groups: One is very rich and is mocked for it by the others collectively. Creatives with experimental ideas ahead f Large groups: One is proud of belonging to his/her home town and holds some of their time; at the forefront of artistic religious or moral values dear but is roundly mocked for it by the others. progress. Other experimental movements Information (15 mins) include Futurism (characteristics of We are starting our study of Surrealism with Dada, the informal artistic the Machine Age); Cubism (replaced movement that preceded it and made it happen. Having said that, it was not natural forms with geometrical accepted as an art movement by many, including some of its practitioners who planes); Expressionism (symbolism and distortion); Constructivism (abstract art). famously said it was a movement ‘not even in favour of itself!’ Some people felt that World War I (1914–1918) was caused by undue nationalism, so as a reaction against it, in Zurich, Switzerland, there developed Dadaist artists an idea that spread across Europe and to the USA among creatives (particularly Man Ray (also made films); Marcel artists) that they wanted to mock materialistic and nationalistic attitudes in their Duchamp; Kurt Schwitters; Francis work – painting, performance art, photography, sculpture, collage. Picabia; Hans Arp, Hannah Hoch In each city the movement took a different shape and culture. It all disappeared and Hugo Ball stand out. In the late- as Surrealism came along, as we’ll see next session. twentieth century traces of Dadaism are Dada artists were not concerned with crafting works carefully, but would use detectable in the work of Jeff Koons, everyday, incongruous objects they presented as art with no manipulation or skill, Robert Rauschenberg and Damien Hirst among others. which challenged artistic norms, destroyed traditional values and made people question the purpose of art. They were an avant-garde movement, meaning they pushed ahead of others Confusion? with their innovative, experimental, pioneering, unconventional, groundbreaking If the concepts seem too remote or and way-out work that caused deliberate offence, dismay and puzzlement and ridiculous, use the session simply to take some occasional admiration. a picture or sculpture as a starting point for devising that goes in an unexpected Discussion (5 mins) direction and may be offensive, Have a look at a selection of Dadaist works. What do you make of them? How questioning or mocking. could you use one to act as a drama stimulus? Are there are appealing ideas from the Dadaist approach of mocking convention or criticising the traditional? Why? How could you translate that into a piece of group performance? Making drama (30 mins) Marcel Duchamp (1917) took a urinal from its normal setting, turned it over and called it Fountain; ‘art’ which questioned art and artists and offended many. Nowadays its pioneering boldness is regarded as iconic. Similarly, Man Ray (1920) wrapped a sewing machine with a woollen garment and tied it with string. In groups, imagine you are going to make a piece of the ordinary into a work of art. You may film it, photograph it, manipulate the technology, act around and with it, turn it upside down, paint it – but you are making a scene in which you remove the object from its normal context and make it an art object. Solo (3 mins) Volunteers explain to the class, in role as a Dadaist, the artistic merits of a car door, a dead mouse or the contents of a vacuum cleaner. Sharing (15 mins) Ask each group in turn to share work in progress. The purpose is not a polished performance, but a chance to see what learning has been done from Dadaist concepts about mockery of the traditional and how ideas have been turned or could be turned into performance. Discussion/plenary (10 mins) What has been learned? What was successful, effective and/or had potential in your Research for next session own work or that of others? Evaluate the work from a performance perspective. Check out some surrealistic artists and The main point is to open the eyes to the unusual and unexpected; to collaborate, their paintings. to deconstruct the everyday and to entertain ideas without having to agree with them. www.teaching-drama.co.uk Teaching Drama · Summer term 1 · 2015/16 2 Scheme of work|AS/A2 Lesson 2: Getting to grips with Surrealism Resources f Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) by Learning objectives Andre Breton By the end of the lesson students will have: http://www.ubu.com/papers/breton_ f Created performance that draws on some surrealistic concepts Surrealism_manifesto.html f Metropolitan Museum of Art, f Contextualised ideas definition f Enhanced presentation skills http://metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/ f Developed group collaboration hd_surr.htm f Studied some theory which underpins the psychology of Surrealism. f The History of Surrealism (1987) by Maurice Nadeau (Plantin Publishers, Warm-up (15 mins) ISBN 978-1870495035) f Pairs: Choose a character each and have a discussion about a problem you have f Film Reference, Surrealist Cinema failed to solve in which you both tell the unvarnished truth about each other; http://www.filmreference.com/ what you really think of the other. encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy- f Small groups: Develop the same scenario in which you share truth and Yugoslavia/Surrealism-SURREALIST- cause hurt. CINEMA.html f Large groups: Further development in which the truth is now brutally honest. Information (15 mins) Artists We may think we know what Surrealism is and what it means. After all, we Works of surrealistic artists are talk about a ‘surreal moment’ as something that is quite bizarre, odd, a strange informative and inspirational for juxtaposition; a moment that is definitely reality or realism but goes beyond stimulus material: Pablo Picasso and it into something below or besides that reality.
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