TRYathlon

Semester 3

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.

TRYathlon 1: Spider-man Across the Spider-verse Theatre Event

Event Logistics 9/19/23 @ Hoff Theatre, SEE presents Spider-man Across the Spider-verse!

TRYathlon category #film

Coming back on campus, I was in the mood to go watch a new film for inspiration regarding my capstone project. I noticed that Hoff theater was hosting a wide selection of films that have been out recently, and I decided to give it a try as I’ve never seen a movie at a local small theater such as Hoff. If there’s one thing I can take away from this event, it was that this theater was completely run by students and had much more personality than any other theater I went to. The inclusivity of the screening caught me by surprise as I’ve never seen a theater try and incorporate as many ways as possible to make those who might find it hard to experience the art being screened. They had many wheelchair accessible seating, used closed captioning, and made it free for everyone. Moving on to the movie, the film was another great piece of cinema that left me with a lot of new perspectives on modern animation and film. The new style of animation that the first movie introduced to the animation scene was further explored in the sequel and looks even better. The boundaries the art style pushes greatly prove its significance as a piece of art in its field of animation. Animation has felt stagnant for a while and this film only extends the possibilities of what can be done in animation which will further develop this fairly new medium of art. Not only is storytelling already a well-developed art, but visual animation only adds to the intricacies of storytelling which should be taken advantage of by future directors, animators, and writers. Overall, I got a lot out of this theater trip by witnessing a genre-defining film within a notably inclusive exhibition platform.

TRYathlon 2: The Prom

Event Logistics 9/29/23 @ Kay Theater, The Clarice presents The Prom!

TRYathlon category #Theatre

The Prom, presented by the School of Theatre and Performing Arts, was a fun and riveting story to watch live on opening night. It offered quite the spectacle with the stage/set design and multiple moving scene backdrops that mesmerized me and the audience. The story follows a troubled girl who is ostracized by her community for being a lesbian which only worsens when her school’s prom is underway and she plans to invite her girlfriend. It’s a simple base premise, something I learned last semester in my scriptwriting class, but an efficient way to explore the hardships of being different. Everything I picked up on from last semester in my scriptwriting class came rushing back as I watched the story unfold intricately. There were twists, witty humor, and lots of allusions to pop culture which was refreshing for someone of my age to experience. I was so mesmerized by the sets that I discovered how truly impactful theatrical performances can be when telling a story in a live performance. I never before thought about how I could elevate my stories using the tools provided by a stage and lighting design. It connects to the idea of collaboration that is profound within the Arts Scholars philosophy. Different art mediums can collaborate and boost each other up in a sense to elevate and expand the self-expression of one another.

TRYathlon 3: Stress ball Making!

Event Logistics 10/30/23 @ Bel Air Lounge, Stress ball making

TRYathlon category #visualart

Today, I helped organize and plan a stress ball making event for me and my fellow mentees with the rest of the peer mentors. It was a great way to engage and connect with our arts scholars community, so I’m glad everything went well. We even stayed longer to finish watching a film we put on in the background. The idea of community was never something I looked into when thinking about the arts as I always found it to be more an independent activity. Seeing so many people come together to work on a simple visual arts project such as making a stress ball enlightened me enough to view the art process as something that can be done collaboratively instead of just independently. It also helps me realize the importance of group projects within my own major where STEM related topics are mingled with collaborative efforts to form a more diverse and efficient group of creative minds, further showcasing the benefits of having an artistic community as a foreground for how our minds generate ideas. These ideas are then potential solutions to problems we solve using engineering. Although our event was a small scale arts & crafts project, the idea of collaborating and fostering a community to create something upscales to other fields of study such as engineering.