The winter semester is well underway, and Living Arts is excited to present an update on how our community has been encouraging and fostering an interdisciplinary approach to creative pursuits! This newsletter will recap some of the exciting activities we’ve had in the past few months and will provide insight into thought processes of our current and former students and faculty/staff that assist with our program. This newsletter serves as the medium through which you, our members and supporters, can gain insight into our wonderful community. Contents
Important Community Dates
Winter Semester All-Community MeetingsBeginning with the winter semester, our All-Community Meetings have transitioned into the planning and implementation of our Collaborative Creative Projects. Living Arts is about sharing ideas and approaches to creating in an interdisciplinary environment. The Collaborative Creative Projects bring together groups of students in a variety of disciplines within the community, for the purpose of creating something new, interesting or compelling by sharing their different talents and abilities with each other. Students have been working throughout the year in interdisciplinary teams on various projects with guest artists and faculty. The Collaborate Creative Projects allow our students to take what they have learned and stretch their wings on their own with guidance from ArtsEngine staff, working
through phases of creative process to address a given topic or problem. Each Living Arts student team will choose one (or more) U-M artifact from an archive of art, design or architecture to inspire their project. Each completed project will be entered into consideration for permanent placement in the print and digital publication, Student and Alumni Reflections from the U-M Bicentennial, in Winter 2018. Please join us for project presentations at the Living Arts symposium on Saturday April 8 2017 from 4-6 pm in the UM Duderstadt Art Gallery on North campus. The projects will be on display from April 8-14th Current EventsFee Christoph is a first year student of the Living Arts Community this year. She is currently pursuing BFA in Interarts Performance, a program between the school of Art and Design and the school of Music, Theatre, and Dance, to explore and enhance her interests in visual arts and performance. She used skills learned in the architecture rotation of UARTS 150 to build a golden cardboard armature for her final project in Live Art Survey class, which is about the performance art history, and presented at the Ypsilanti Experimental Space. Inspired by Bauhaus, Fee and a friend were interested in how Bauhaus’ eccentric, restrictive costumes can influence dance. After 3D scanning themselves at the Duderstadt Center on campus, they modeled some shapes onto the scanned figures in Rhino, and unfolded the shapes into 2D paper models using Papakura. Then they spent hours scoring, cutting, folding, and hot-gluing the paper model into a wearable costume as designed in Rhino. In this project, Fee also incorporated her computer knowledge learned from EECS 183 programming class to generate random, understandable lyrics that respond to their own recorded manifesto. UARTS 150Jeremy EdwardsLecturer II SMTD, UARTS 150 An Instructor in the school of Music, Theatre & Dance, Jeremy Edwards is one of the collaborative professors working with the UARTS 150 course, required of all first year students in the Living Arts Program. Living Arts Program Director, Mark Jones, recently sat down with Professor Edwards to gain insight behind the educational philosophy and methods used in the course. 1. What makes UARTS 150 different from any other university offered course? "It offers an interesting perspective. Instead of looking at creativity through the lens of one field, students are able to look at how engineers work to solve creative issues, how a musician might look at a different problem to solve creative issues. [The course allows students to] kind of compare and contrast their own experience to creating a project in the various fields. So it gives it a very immediate and personal experience." 2. How has the course evolved over time, and how would you like to see it evolve in the future? "We talk about the creative process being iterative, and the course itself evolves and is a new iteration each year. We try out new things and explore new territories. We have worked really hard to make sure we are meeting the first year writing requirements, so that is probably the biggest change. We also added creative writing because writing is a form of making. So we wanted to honor that as well." "I would like to see the course move to even more interdisciplinary activities. Where there is more interaction between the different departments. For instance, we might start a project in the music section and then pass that along to the architecture section, where you might be building structures based on the music or the soundscape that you produce in the music section. Then, take that to the A&D rotation and build upon what was built in the architecture to add even more interdisciplinary approaches to teaching." 3. What do you hope students take away from this course? "I think another unique thing about UARTS 150 is that the focus is more on the process rather than the product. Within each one of these rotations, students are making an art project or an architecture project, but we are trying to emphasize a discovery of process rather than creating a masterpiece. So I would say the most important thing for students to take away is a deeper understanding of how they work, how they function, how they approach creative processes, and not just personally but how others approach that. Then [we] can more readily move between different fields. I think jobs of the future are going to continue to demand people to switch gears and think differently and move between different departments, or at least be able to communicate effectively with different departments. Having an understanding of how different people think might create an environment for better products or a more creative workspace." 4. What do you like most about teaching UARTS 150? "It is a unique opportunity to share my knowledge of a particular subject with students who may not always encounter that information. If you are coming to the school of engineering to study computer engineering, you might not have an opportunity to explore working with sound or creating a composition. Additionally, some students come into the course believing that they have no creative abilities, so when I am able to facilitate the discovery that creativity is innate in all of us, it is very rewarding." 5. What advice do you have for students making the transition from high school to college, especially those considering entering Living Learning Communities? "One of the things that Living Learning Communities offer is a home base. A group of friends or colleagues that you will share similar experiences with, such as taking UARTS 150. I know a lot of people develop deep friendships during their time in the course. I watch it happen in the classroom. You have somebody to fall back on and share any difficulties you may be having and also sharing the successes together. So I think it is a great opportunity to have a group of people you can rely on and have a shared experience with while you are on campus and after you graduate!." UARTS 150 Instructors: Jeremy Edwards, Lecturer Course Coordinator, School of Music Theatre and Dance Katie Rubin, Lecturer, Stamps School of Art & Design Jono Sturt, Lecturer, Taubman College of Architecture Ali Shapiro, Lecturer, College of Literature Science and Arts Michael Flynn, College of Engineering Jennifer Metsker, Lecturer, Writing Consultant, Stamps School of Art and Design SpotlightsCommunity Collaboration CreativityMaya BallesterLiving Arts Mentee/ Incoming Mentor Maya Ballester, a vocal performance major in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, is a current first year member of the Living Arts family. In a recent interview with Maya, when asked questions regarding her participation in Living Arts, Maya’s answers revolved around three main concepts: community, collaboration, and creativity. To Maya, the community created by the people in living arts helped to define her first-year experience from the moment she arrived in her dorm hallway: “All of the doors were open and everyone wanted to meet each other. Being members of the community of Living Arts gave us a common bond that I think is so important for first year students. You are immediately surrounded by a supportive group of people.” Likewise, in terms of the all community events hosted by Living Arts in the fall term, Maya describes the importance of this community and the collaboration that must come from such events: “The all-community meetings each feature a different area in arts or science, so you get a wide variety of experiences, from dance to music to arduinos. We are being thrown into an unfamiliar thing together, but there are always a few people who know more. It is really cool to see fellow students enjoying what they are good at and having them teach the rest of us." Even if you know nothing about the topic, you are always able to take something helpful away from each workshop. It's a judgment-free zone, which makes it easier to experiment.” Perhaps the most important component of Living Arts to Maya, however, is creativity and the creative process: “Creative pursuits are probably my favorite thing in any form, and it was fascinating to learn that disciplines I didn't typically think of as creative, i.e., engineering, math and science, can be very creative. Living Arts allowed me to see that through a different lens.” Finally, being an out-of-state freshman, Maya wanted to have a built-in community to help her with the transition of living so far from home: “I wanted to be able to connect with a lot of people from different backgrounds. Living Arts allowed me to do that. Within Living Arts, there is such an element of family. We all support each other, and we all know that we each bring something different to the community, so it is a very open and nurturing environment." Zachary BoulangerAlumnusZach Boulanger, a fifth year engineering student and past peer mentor for Living Arts, currently works with ArtsEngine as a web designer. Zach recently spent time with Living Arts answering questions about his experience as an undergraduate student and a member of the Living Arts community. 1. How has Living Arts impacted your curricular and professional life? Living Arts was definitely one of the biggest launching points for my entire academic career. I was kind of introduced to the creative process. It has been truly impactful on where I have gone with my career choices. I have taken more design classes and more humanities classes, than I would have necessarily had to as an engineer, and I have had lots of professional or real-life experiences because of living arts. I was able to work with ArtsEngine and go to conferences. I received a lot more experiences than I would have if I were not exposed to the creative process through Living Arts. 2. Why should first year students join Living Arts? It is a once in a life-time experience to get a very awesome experience, that you won’t forget or get anywhere else in the University. Even at a place like Michigan, where there is so much going on, we are still very siloed into our departments. Living Arts breaks down those barriers. Living Arts is a large, diverse group of people that I am proud to be an alum of. Upon graduating in May, Zach will be moving to Seattle, Washington, where he has accepted a position with Amazon. We look forward to following Zach's Story. |