{"id":188,"date":"2015-09-10T04:48:39","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T04:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/?page_id=188"},"modified":"2015-09-11T21:52:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T21:52:06","slug":"the-performing-arts-in-a-technological-world","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/the-performing-arts-in-a-technological-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Performing Arts in a Technological World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melissa Foulger<\/em><\/h4>\n

\n

\u201cI regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms,
\n<\/i>the most immediate way in which a human being
\n<\/i>can share with another the sense of what it is to be
\n<\/i>a human being.\u201d
\n<\/i>\u2014 Thornton Wilder<\/p>\n

DramaTech Theatre was founded upon the mission of \u201cencouraging the creative talents of Georgia Tech\u2019s future engineers, managers, architects, scientists, and leaders: talents that might otherwise never fully develop in the world of calculators and computers.\u201d Through multiple productions ranging from improvisation to Broadway musicals, world premieres to variety shows, DramaTech has spent over 60 years asking students to push the bounds of creativity to create quality performances for the rest of campus. \u00a0More importantly, it has been asking students to find their humanity and their creativity.<\/p>\n

\"musical\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Employers today want more than students who have excelled in their majors. \u00a0They are looking for people who have other assets such as flexibility, problem solving abilities and interpersonal skills. \u00a0The arts are an integral part of preparing students for the 21st-century workforce.\u00a0 In The Arts and the Creation of the Mind<\/i> (2002, p. 70\u201492), Dr. Elliot W. Eisner identified key competencies of cognitive growth that are developed through arts education and enhance skill development in preparation for a career including<\/p>\n

\u2022 perception of relationships;
\n\u2022 skills in finding multiple solutions to problems;
\n\u2022 attention to nuance;
\n\u2022 adaptability;
\n\u2022 decision-making skills; and
\n\u2022 visualization of goals and outcomes.<\/p>\n

The theatre provides an incubator for development of these skills. \u00a0It requires a group of people to come together as a team to create a performance. \u00a0They must work together. \u00a0They must problem solve. \u00a0They must pay attention to detail; otherwise the show will not go on. \u00a0And the show must go on\u2014even at Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n

When I tell people what I do, the question most often asked of me is \u201cthere\u2019s theatre at Georgia Tech?\u201d My answer is always a resounding \u201cyes\u201d. \u00a0As the Artistic Director of DramaTech and an instructor of classes that focus on theatrical performance and production, it is my mission to illuminate the necessity for arts in the world of science and technology. The function of my job is to do just what Thornton Wilder says, to afford students the opportunity to \u201cshare with [one] another the sense of what it is to be a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arts are an integral part of preparing students for the 21st-century workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So, DramaTech thrives at Tech because it too is a laboratory. \u00a0In this setting, students are given access to a theatrical space to experiment and create. They learn through a model of peer mentorship and advisement. \u00a0Don\u2019t know how to hang and focus a light? Another can teach you. Never used a sewing machine? An alumnus can teach you. Want to learn how to make walls of stone from Styrofoam? Just ask and we\u2019ll bring in a local theatre professional to teach a workshop. Students are starving to learn more about the arts. They take their job seriously and are deeply committed, often matching their academic hours with hours at the theatre.<\/p>\n

\"9261902711_9d8ecbed3a_o\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Even more exciting is the opportunity that these students receive to learn the skills that Eisner says are necessary for the current market. In production, we work in teams. \u00a0This requires us to communicate about their designs and to problem solve how all of the components can cohesively come together. Students navigate the rocky landscape of leadership in a peer setting\u2014exploring when it is appropriate to be a leader or a friend. The importance of deadlines and planning becomes tantamount as they navigate the time constraints of the busy Georgia Tech academic life. Finally, we take risks\u2014trying to enhance the theatrical experience with current innovation.<\/p>\n

Recently, DramaTech worked on an adaptation of Haruki Murakami\u2019s after the quake<\/i> in which a Microsoft Kinect was used to track the gestures of an actor. The goal of the Kinect\u2019s output was to aid in the amplification of the emotions during specific storytelling scenes. This piece of technology was developed from a Special Topics class that I co-taught with a Digital Media PhD candidate that focused on technology in performance. \u00a0Students were introduced to the play and then worked in teams to develop different technologies they thought would work with the production. Through a series of pitch processes, several different technologies were devised and the Kinect was chosen as the final product to be created for the production. \u00a0Students worked on coding the Kinect and building the hardware in order to give a demonstration by the end of the semester (which they were able to do successfully). We were then able to continue to implement the Kinect gesture tracking system into the final production with great success.<\/p>\n

Regularly, students remark on how their work on productions aids the group work that they have to do for class. They find that they are better planners and communicators because they are constantly executing those skills when they work on DramaTech productions. Alumni stay connected to DramaTech because they have a close circle of friends that remain an important part of their lives. They view their time at Tech through the lens of DramaTech. It is the place where they flourish outside of the world of academics. It is their home away from home. So, when people ask me incredulously about theatre at Georgia Tech, my answer continues to be a resounding yes because, at DramaTech, we\u2019re building more than engineers, we\u2019re creating well-rounded humans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Melissa Foulger \u201cI regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.\u201d \u2014 Thornton Wilder DramaTech Theatre was founded upon the mission of \u201cencouraging the creative talents of Georgia Tech\u2019s … Continue reading “The Performing Arts in a Technological World”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-188","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu\/humanistic-perspectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}