Em's Art Scholars Adventures

Welcome to the new chapter of my life in the arts scholars program! Watch as we submerge our selves in new discoveries of the world that is art. 

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I visited the stamp art gallery!  This gallery never fails to impress me with the cool art that it displays. I thought this piece especially cool in the surreal-looking landscape of what appears to be a tropical area being impacted by machinery. I thought it was intriguing in it’s looks and layout,

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I participated in the scholars Kickball Tournament! It was a long day of kickball but over all we managed to kick our way into third place! so it was a pretty successful day for us Arts Scholars!

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Here is another performance I took part in.  The play we did a stage reading of was Jumpy by April De Angelis.  This show was about a middle aged woman dealing with growing old.  She finds herself undesirable professionally and sexually.  She has a moody teenage daughter and throughout the plays they have several spats on these topics.  He marriage is falling apart and over-all the play is very really, and actually really funny.  It deals accurately with the complications of age and the continual forward movement of time.

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This is a performance I was in of a stage reading of Brian Friel’s play, Translations.  This play is about a small town called beali bage in Ireland during the potato blight.  The English had come to make a map of Ireland and change all the place name’s to English ones. This play commented on the ability to destroy a culture by removing it’s language. 

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I went to see my little brother’s high school performance of Romeo and Juliet! It was a good performance and a wonderful set! Although the show was very long it was still enjoyable, especially when my brother was on stage and talking!  Romeo and Juliet is a great story and it was a nice refresher since the last time I had seen or read the play was in 9th grade! 

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I went to a panel called “Reimagining Everything” held by University of Maryland’s Department of Women’s Studies where several topics were discussed surrounding gay and transgender women. Several authors came and discussed there books that touched on these topics as well as researchers.  Many of this research and discussion was a little beyond my education level on this topic so I didn’t quite understand everything that was talked about, however it was an interesting event and I enjoyed hearing what these women had to say and about the novels they had written!

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I went to go see the display of sculptures in the Art Sociology building and they were super cool! I’m always impressed when viewing artwork made by my peers because I can’t imagine being that creative or that talented! I think it’s great that we can have galleries throughout the building, enveloping the students in art as they travel from class to class instead of being held separate in a closed off room like a traditional gallery.  Art like the top photo are especially great because they transform basic buildings into exciting places full of life!!

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Here is a photo of me and Pierce at a low-key country music performance in Hollywood MD! It was at a farm Christmas festival. There were displays of old tractors and antics, the barn animals were available for a petting, and this was the live music portion.  Country music isn’t really my thing but this was an interesting expierience and a whole lotta fun!

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I preformed in the stage reading of my friend Shuping’s show Goldfish. We preformed the stage reading at the Kennedy Center.  The play has a wonderfully written script about pressure within society and within the home. It is also a show that centers around Chinese culture and the good and bad aspects that go along with the culture.  It was a wonderful, fun and learning experience for me!

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Pentathlon Event: Speaking

I do not have a photo for this but I spoke at the CPSA open house. I helped answer questions and promote the arts scholars program to prospective students. It was fun to do and took me back to when I was a senior in high school visiting the open house. It allowed me to reflect on my first year here in arts scholars. I was able to share with students and parents how it has been a wonderful part of my first year here, and how I’ve made so many wonderful friends living in the dorm with other students who also share a passion for the arts.

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I went to the Hirshhorn Museum in DC! The Hirshhorn Museum is mainly a modern and contemporary art museum. Modern and contemporary art is a unique to all art throughout history in it’s color and it’s use of color, mediums, and overall definition and ideas on the meaning of art. Many of the works in this museum were symbolic, interactive, or injinuatiive in material and display. This museum was really interesting, and fun to experience! 

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I went to my little brothers high school show, Bye Bye Birdie! It was okay, not amazing but it’s only a high school show. Julia, the girl who played Rose was brilliant. She’s a beautiful singer and has great stage presence.  The rest of the cast was pretty average. I used to be apart of this theatre program when I was in high school, and I know that it was pretty much the same then, but everything seemed so much more lively when  your on stage as opposed to in the audience.  In the dance numbers there is too much feet moment and not enough motion for the rest of the body. It makes the stage feel kinda empty and dance numbers seem boring. Our dances have always been like that, it’s pretty funny. But overall it was a charming show, and wonderful to see all my friends and my little brother up there on stage! It made me miss high school!

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On April 23rd I went to then Spring Show for Dacadence, an A Capella group here at UMD! Their show was really impressive! The first set wasn’t as good as the second, especially for their opening group, a group from American University. They were okay but sounded pretty bad after hearing Dacadence, but I guess that’s what you want, an opener that makes you sound better than them! Overall the show was great, and most of the singers were pretty strong! Also I got to go to the chapel for the first time and I had no idea how beautiful it was! Great venue. 

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On Thursday, March 31st I participated in the Me Too monologues here are Maryland. The Me Too monologues are a compilation of monologues written and submitted anonymously by students and preformed by students. It was a wonderful way hear what our peers are struggling with, and for many people and opportunity to connect to many of the experiences voiced in the monologues.  As an actor I was given a monologue written anonymously by a student here and had to do my best to embody the piece and do justice to the author. The event was a major success. Many people related to the monologues and enjoyed the performances all around!

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I went to the 9:30 club to see The Academy Is for their 10 year anniversary tour! They have been broken up for years now but got back together just to do this one tour. It was interesting to see how they've changed since I had seen them back in middle school. They had a good performance but over the years my taste in music has changed quite a bit and I definitely did not find them as great as I used to, I think a lot of their songs ended up sounding really similar. But the venue was decorated beautifully and the crowd was really hyped so over all it was a fun show!

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I attended a scholars screening of WALL-E this past Wednesday. The movie was thought provoking in the way it portrayed the possible future of our wold if we continue to throw away the amounts that trash that we currently do.  This problem of trash has been the key theme of scholars this year and this movie gives a reason why.  After watching the movie we had a discussion. We were told to relate the problems of the movie to our scholars program.  In terms of art scholars my group talked about the use of art to raise awareness of this issue of trash. This movie in itself is art, and clearly it has had an effect on the way that people think about trash

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I found that at STAMP there is a cute little art exhibit! There were multiple beautiful works hanging in the exhibit, but one of my favorites was Derrick Adams, Game Changing (Ace, King, Queen, Jack).  The cards are beautiful, depicting the royal figures not as the typical white (probably Western European) royalty to African royalty.  The playing cards were transformed to something mass produced to a unique, and precious (literally as it’s made with 23.5 carat gold leaf) display of black royalty and “African American life and history”.