Arts & Technologies

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In the Arts and Technologies cluster, students, faculty, staff, and community partners focus on the processes of effective story-telling and making things. We value communication, collaboration, creative problem-solving, and learning for the sake of learning. We study, promote, and practice the intentional use of tools and technologies to enable the creation, sharing, and reception of our work.

Real-World Cluster Project

International Arts and Culture Project

The Problem

A small Canadian seacoast community offers youth little cultural enrichment in the arts.

Awareness of the Issue

The local Canadian school lacks a full-time art or music teacher and there are few opportunities to participate in theatre.

Collaborative Team Projects

PSU graduate students worked with youth in partnership with the Concerned Citizens of St. Martins, New Brunswick, and the St. Martins Summer Theatre.

Proposal Presentations

Cross-cultural integrated arts activities included a musical theatre production, a K–2 arts program, an African drumming workshop, an art show, and an intergenerational chorus.

Improved Outcomes

American and Canadians collaborated on interdisciplinary musical theatre and arts projects. PSU graduate students taught workshops and created integrated arts opportunities.

Undergraduate Degree ProgramsGraduate Degree ProgramsMinorsCluster Projects

Communication Studies

Electromechanical Technology and Robotics (BS)

English

English-Writing option

Literacy & the Teaching of Writing

Music Education

Online Instructional Design

Arts, Learning & Leadership (Certificate of Advances Graduate Studies)

Stormy Weather

Project Submitter
Lourdes B. Aviles
lavilesbramer@plymouth.edu

Project Description: Stormy Weather is an interdisciplinary project combining science with music, movement, theatre and visual arts. Professors Aviles, Lindberg, Anneser, Kizer, Whitworth, Sousa and Judas will work with PSU meteorology, visual art, education, music, theatre and dance and general education students, the Plymouth Parks and Recreation Department, the Flying Monkey Performance Center and Movie House and 30-40 children in grades 3-8 from the Plymouth area to realize this proposal.The purpose of the project will be to explore four different kinds of storms (thunderstorms, snowstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes). This will be accomplished through:

Weather content delivered by Dr. Aviles and the meteorology students to faculty collaborators, PSU students and children engaged in the project.
Fine art depicting the different storms in different mediums created by Professor Anneser and her fine art students.
Publicity and graphic design supporting the project created by PSU graphic design students under the supervision of Professor Anneser.
Visual art projects on storms created by PSU students in the Transformation through the Arts general education classes delivered by Timm Judas, instructor.
Integrated arts lessons on the four different storms created by PSU elementary education and childhood studies students in Integrated Arts and graduate students in the MEd in integrated arts and the CAGS in Arts, Leadership and Learning taught by Trish Lindberg.
Choreography created by advanced PSU students in Dance Composition to be held in Spring 2017, taught by Lenore Sousa, with supervision by Amanda Whitworth.
Projections and animations designed by technical theatre students under the supervision of Matt Kizer.
Music and soundscapes created by Randy Armstrong, world musician, PSU students and children in grades 3-8.

A culminating original musical theatrical performance and art exhibit, entitled Stormy Weather, directed and coordinated by Trish Lindberg, that incorporates projections/animations created by PSU music, theatre and dance students supervised by Matt Kizer, movement choreographed and danced by advanced Dance Composition students taught by Lenore Sousa and supervised by Amanda Whitworth, original music and soundscapes created by Randy Armstrong, Guest Artist, in collaboration with PSU and elementary age students, posters and programs created by PSU graphic art students, and visual art projects created by elementary age students supervised by PSU art students and Pamela Anneser and additional visual art projects on storms created by PSU general education students supervised by Timm Judas in the Transformation Through the Arts course.

Dance, Visual Art, and Theater Production

Project Submitter
Philip Lonergan
plonergan@plymouth.edu

Project Description: This is an interdisciplinary collaboration between three traditionally distinct disciplines: Dance, Visual Art, and Theater Production. The goal is to produce an evening length performance on the main stage at Hanaway Theater on December 2 that utilizes the Brechtian idea of breaking the fourth wall. DN 3010 – Contemporary Dance Ensemble (CDE) (Instructor: Amanda Whitworth) has been co-scheduled in D&M with AR 3940 – Advanced Multi-Disciplinary Studies (3D) (Instructor: Phil Lonergan). The classes will be joined by an upper-level student taking TH 3670 – Advanced Practicum in Production (Instructor: Bob Bruemmer). This is a semester-long project where Advanced Sculpture students (Advanced Multi-Disciplinary Studies), CDE, and Advanced Theater Production students learn the content, purpose, epistemologies, and methods involved with each other’s disciplines. By thoroughly exploring each other’s ways of working, they will find pathways to integrate knowledge and concepts in the service of the creation of the final performance and an accompanying public talk. Students will also travel to NYC to view current Art and Dance performances and attend a movement workshop given by contemporary practitioners in the field. The performance will be open to the public. On a separate day, the students will facilitate a panel discussion, also open to the public, which will focus on the purpose of the work and why it requires an interdisciplinary perspective; which disciplinary perspectives contributed to the work’s overall meaning; where/how the disciplinary perspectives come together; the challenges of working across disciplines and the possibilities that it opened for the group, for art, for education, etc.

Resilience Project

Project Submitter
Cynthia Robinson
ccrobinson@plymouth.edu

Project Description: This project has already begun in multiple classrooms this September, and will continue and take physical form in the Karl Drerup Art Gallery, where it will be on view until the end of the Fall 2016 semester. Like its community, the project and exhibit will grow and adapt to its surroundings based completely on student, faculty, and Plymouth resident input.This collaborative project/exhibit will present a network of connectedness centered around the theme of resilience and vulnerabilities. What does it mean for a landscape or person to be resilient? How does the look of resilience change in different places, countries, or people? Where are the vulnerable spaces right here in Plymouth? What is the difference between sustainability and resilience?The exhibit content will evolve from PSU student work that happens as integrated into existing course work. The partnering faculty members, meeting over the last 6 months, have been evolving units of study that pertain to this concept, and have been connecting to each other, with the intent that the students and their work will overlap, connect, and collaborate to create images, videos, written work, and interactive elements that will be on display. Visiting artist, Jason Mitcham will be collaborating with students and providing central images for the exhibit.A special element of this exhibition will be its organic quality; it will change and evolve over the exhibit time period, with work made by PSU students appearing and connecting to build a rich conversation in real time. At last count, 197 PSU students from fine art, graphic design, environmental, philosophy, digital media, general education, and international student groups will be participating.