The prompt for out performance pieces was the concept of generosity. I was inspired by a little activity I would do with the children that I worked with at my summer job at a day camp. I would ask three of them to give me the name of an animal, and then I would draw an imaginary animal that combines the traits of all three of the animals, often creating very bizarre creatures.
I wanted to give the gift of a bizarre creature to the class, a strange animal of their own making. At the beginning of class I handed out slips of paper and asked everyone to write on it the name of animal. I collected them and once it was my turn to perform, asked Professor Huff to pick three. I invited them to sit on the floor with me and get comfortable. The three animals chosen were a lizard, a possum, and a sloth.
Sitting cross-legged and with my paper in front of me on the floor, I put some black paint on the extra papers, and dipped my fingers in the paint. I invited the class to enter into the mindset of a child again, and imagine what creature we could create by mixing those three animals. I started painting the lizard-possum-sloth, and asked them to join in. We excitedly collaborated. Those who knew what a lizard eye looked like jumped in and painted one. Those who liked sloths painted their strange fingers. We informed each other on how certain aspects of the real animals look, and prompted each other to smear that black paint imaginatively over the paper. We added a strange environment for the creature, complete with two suns, some flowers, and Saturn. It was a playful, child-like, imaginative time. It was a privilege to give my my classmates the opportunity to collaborate with each other in child-like fancy, and join with them in the creation of our new mascot, the slizossum.
Comments
Post a Comment