Staci Jordan
Arts Scholar
Pentathlon
Semester 1
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my first semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
Pentathlon 1: Edward MacDowell Exhibit
September 9, 2022 | NextNow Fest | Edward MacDowell: An American Composer’s Legacy
#visualart
Although I attended/participated in a few of UMD’s NextNow Fest events on Friday, September, 9, I have chosen to reflect on my experience at the Edward MacDowell exhibit. The exhibit showcased MacDowell’s life and legacy as a great American composer. One event in particular that stood out to me was that towards the end of his life, he and his wife decided to transform their farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire into a colony for other artists to have a quiet and peaceful place to create their own art, specifically music. I can appreciate that during MacDowell’s time, around the late 1800s and early 1900s, people seemed to appreciate the value of art. Especially because I feel that more recently, we have gone through a period of people not seeing the arts as being necessary or of any value to society, with schools not having enough funding to keep the arts in their curriculums. For a while, it seemed that art programs were the first things to be cut out when schools were running out of government funding. Fortunately, we as a society are starting to recognize the importance of art again. The Arts Scholars program is a living testament to that fact.
Pentathlon 2: Viewing of the Movie Chocolat
October 9, 2022 | Netflix | Chocolat
#film
For my second pentathlon event, I watched the movie Chocolat on Netflix. I recommend watching it. The film came out in 2000 and took place in a small French village. The movie is about Vianne and her daughter Anouk moving to the small town and opening a chocolate shop. The mayor looks down on Vianne because she is a single mother who has never been married, she does not go to church, and she does not follow the town norms. In this small French village, everyone is Catholic, they practice modesty and self-regulation, and they all know their place. The mayor tries to turn everyone against Vianne because she is not Catholic, so he says she works for the devil. The mayor also tries to turn the town against some other “outsiders” who move to the river near the town. In the end, Vianne is able to change the mayor's and all the villagers’ perceptions of outsiders. She helps them realize that being good is not just about self-regulation and avoiding doing bad, but also about doing good acts like being kind and inclusive.
I enjoyed the movie because of the final message it conveyed, which was that being good does not just entail avoiding bad acts, but also includes doing good acts like being kind to others. The message that this movie conveys demonstrates how art can have other purposes besides just entertainment. This reminds me of a discussion I had in one of my classes about art versus entertainment. In that discussion, we said that entertainment is something that distracts us for a limited amount of time, while art is something that makes you think and reflect on it for a while. Based on my experience watching Chocolat, I would say it is both art and entertainment.
Pentathlon 3: Viewing of the Dance, Family Portrait
October 23, 2022 | UMD’s Dance Streaming Service - Alexander Street | Family Portrait
#dance
For my third pentathlon event, I chose to watch a performance of the dance entitled Family Portrait. This dance was choreographed by Birgit Cullberg. It is an older performance, but I still found the performance to be relevant and enjoyable. This performance showed that it is possible to tell a story through dance. I used to think of dance more as entertainment because it just seemed like something fun to watch; that was the extent of its purpose. However, this performance was more than just something nice to look at, it had a message or theme the dancers tried to convey to the audience, similar to how authors convey themes through their stories. I think the choreographer, through her dancers, was trying to tell parents that young love is just as strong as love between full-grown adults. A lesson that is still relevant today.
The dance starts out with a daughter taking a family photo with her parents. Deeper into the plot, the daughter meets a boy and they fall in love. The daughter's parents catch her with the boy and take her away from him. The mother seems to disapprove of their relationship the most because she slaps her daughter in the face after catching them. In the end, the mother finally approves of their relationship once her husband dies. I think because the mother loved her husband so much and he died, she realized how she must make her daughter feel by keeping her away from this boy she loves. Another way I interpreted the ending was that maybe the mother realized that life was too short, so she no longer tried to stop her daughter from living her life the way she wanted. I encourage others to watch this dance and see how they interpret it.
Pentathlon 4: Viewing of the Movie, Bird Box
October 27, 2022 | Netflix | Bird Box
#film #ArtsScholars
For my fourth pentathlon event, I had a virtual Halloween movie night with my Arts Scholars peer mentor. We streamed the movie Bird Box on Netflix. I had already seen the movie once before, but after watching it again, I saw some things I missed and began to think more about the message the movie tried to convey. To give a brief overview of the film, Bird Box is an apocalyptic thriller movie. If you have not seen the movie yet; this is a spoiler alert. An unknown evil force travels across the world like a pandemic, killing anyone who sees it. It takes the characters a little while to finally adapt to having to move around outside with their eyes covered. They also have to worry about what they hear because the evil force tries to tempt people into looking at it by imitating the voices of people they know, trust, and/or care about.
One aspect of the film that stood out to me was that, in the end, it was mostly just blind people who survived. One lesson I believe the movie was trying to convey to the audience is that you cannot always trust everything you see and hear. In addition, the fact that it was blind people who were the ones to survive implies that the movie was also trying to change the audience’s perspective of what it means to be blind. Our society sort of pities blind people because of their disability, but in the movie, it was the people who could see who were the most vulnerable. Bird Box is an example of how art can help advance a more inclusive society by changing our perspective about the disabled members of it.
Pentathlon 5: Viewing of the Play, Neighbors
November 20, 2022 | UMD’s streaming service - Theater in Video | Neighbors
#theater
For my final pentathlon event, I watched Arkady Leokum's play Neighbors, directed by Fielder Cook. This play was released in 1971 and performed by Andrew Duggan, Raymond St. Jacques, Cicely Tyson, and Jane Wyatt. The play was gripping and thought-provoking. I appreciated the message it conveyed about race. As I watched the performance, I thought about a discussion in my Arts colloquium about whether the arts advance a more equitable society or reinforce boundaries and injustices.
The play starts with this white couple preparing to sell their house to a black couple. They talk amongst themselves about how the fact that the people they are going to sell their house to are black does not matter to them. However, it appeared they were trying to convince themselves of that because they brought up how all their neighbors are white and the white neighbors who sold their houses to black people moved away. Once the black couple arrived at their home, the white couple acted a little strange toward the black couple. They tried to suggest how the black couple and their family should act now that they are moving into this neighborhood. The black husband got upset and put them in their place. He pointed out to them their implicit bias toward them. The black husband showed the white couple that in the end, he could only get ahead if a white man validated him. This play was a great example of how the arts can help advance a more equitable society because it forces viewers to think about their implicit biases and the impact that slavery and racist laws still have on our society. It is sad, but this is a message which still needs to be applied today.
