What does an actor need to know about Bread and Puppet Theatre to Essay

What does an actor need to know about Bread and Puppet Theatre to produce and perform it - Essay Example The research is based on famous Bread and Puppet Theatre located in Glover in Northeast kingdom of Vermont, North America. The research gives an overview on principles and information an actor should know in order to produce and perform it."Theatre is as essential as Bread for daily Life"; "Theatre is a religion" are the principles on which exists the famous Obie Award winning Bread & Puppet Theatre founded in 1962 by Peter Schumann in New York City. Bread and Puppet theatre is one of the oldest, nonprofit and self supporting theatre companies in North America since 1960's.Bread and Puppet theatre, as the name suggests uses different arts in their shows like puppets (hand puppets and rod puppets), music, sculpture, dance etc. Bread and puppet is internationally recognized and renowned theatre group campaigning visually rich performance with slapstick, music and dance. Mostly all the performance of the group are done is streets or in farms or in large rooms (like churches). The partic ipants/actors onstage and offstage are mostly local volunteers. Internationally Bread and Puppet theatre performs massive spectacles with hundreds of participants devoted to social, political and environmental issues and sometimes of simple life issues.As the Bread and Puppet group believes in self dependency, The Company makes its own bread and patent of them is the distribution of self baked bread with "aioli" (garlic sauce) to the audience after every performance as a mean of creating community and from its central principle that "Art should be as basic to life as bread". The Bread and Puppet Group gained high visibility during early 60's and 70's during the time of Vietnam Wars for their Anti Vietnam War events. During the war times Bread and Puppet theatre staged processions involving hundreds of people. By the 80's the puppets had become emblematic of activist pacifism and a sine qua non of American Political theatre. All shows hosted by the group are antiwar, anti capitalism, anti globalization and pro Vermont independence. A brief background of the founder and the group will help a person to understand the foundations the theatre group is laid on. Peter Schumann, the founder of Bread and Puppet theatre was born in New York in 1934.Schumann studied and practiced dance and sculpture in Germany and in 1959 with a friend Dieter Starosky, he created dance group by the name "GRUPPE FUR NEUEN TANZ" (meaning New Dance Group). Schumann's work is not with formal or classical dance. He invented dance which was very different from traditional ballet and expressionist dance. Two years later, in 1961 with his wife Elka and two children he moved to the United States of America. He regularly attended lectures at Cunningham studio as he was heavily influenced by the radical innovations by John Cage and Merce Cunningham but very soon he separated himself from them. Peter was against the use of conventional form of dances ONLY, like Ballet which was a requirement for Cunningham. Cunningham refused to work with anybody who is not familiar with the Ballet form of dance. Peter Schumann-Founder of Bread & Puppet Theatre In 1970'sBread and puppet moved as theatre in residence to Goddard College where they practiced puppetry and exercised gardening and to make bread as a means of self dependency while living by the countryside. In 1974 the group moved into a 140years old hay farm in Glover, Vermont. The farm has a museum which is the resting place of many veteran puppets. Every year Bread and puppet group hosted Domestic Resurrection Circus which was a 2 day outdoor show which included skits highlighting many serious issues with a touch of humor. These Acts ranged from people dancing on Stilts to puppets lions dashing

Childhood Memories and Adult Aspirations Essay Example for Free

Childhood Memories and Adult Aspirations Essay Back when I was younger I would spend countless hours playing in the sand box on warm, sunny days. Time was an irrelevant figure of which I knew or cared little about. The biggest problem I had to negotiate was how to construct the biggest and most complex sand castle possible. This type of scenario is something which is much more rare in the adult world. As an adult a person bares a great deal of responsibility and time means much more than in a childs world. Now that I am making the transition from simple childhood into the complex world of adulthood, I am reminded of the many things I will miss about being a kid. Though there are many things about childhood I will miss there are also many things about adult life that I greatly look forward to. One of the activities I will greatly miss about being a kid is going outside during the winter with my little brother and building a snow fortress. We would each take advantage of the snow piles which inevitably formed along the boarders of the driveway after each shoveling job. Therefore, almost immediately after there was a snowfall my brother and I would each build a fort and then proceed, after construction, to have snowball wars. Playing in the snow together brought us hours of fun and enjoyment. It is times like these where life is carefree and the only thing that matters is having fun. We always had a great time together during these moments. Another thing I will miss about being a kid is the recesses we were entitled to in elementary school. Every day class would seem to last an eternity as my friends and I would wait in anticipation of the recess bell. Collectively everyone would get together and decide upon a game which we could play. For example one day we would play soccer and the next day we would play Cops and Robbers. Each activity brought to us many laughs and hours of enjoyment. These periods of time provided us with a break from the day and I believe taught us a great deal about interacting with one another. Recess with all of my friends is something that I miss and will continue to miss for a long time. In the future and into adulthood I am looking forward to in adulthood is being able to have total independence. Independence is something great a person gets when he becomes an adult. Being able to make all of your own  decisions and having the privilege of being able to partake in activities which minors cannot is a great advantage to being an adult. I am looking forward to, for example, being able to go to the sports bar with my friends to watch hockey and football games. It is these privileges which appeal to me and make me exited to become an adult. Lastly being able to travel around the world with friends and family is something I also look forward to in adulthood. I hope to travel to many destinations with friends during and after university. Learning about different cultures, foods, ideas, ways of life, and histories is something I believe will be very enjoyable. Vacations, along with providing lots of relaxation and learning, also give people the chance to meet lots of new and different people. I believe that vacationing with friends provides lots of great experience and therefore posses as a great advantage to becoming an adult. The carefree hours of fun and games experienced as a child will always be something I fondly remember. Currently I accept the fact that those times are, for the most part, gone and am positively anticipating adulthood. The securities of childhood are great accept for the fact that they inevitably take away independence something most people need as they get older. In contrast, however, independence comes with the price of responsibility and therefore must be used wisely. I am greatly looking forward to adult life and will always fondly remember my childhood.

Conflict in the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Essay example -- essay

Action and reaction are the very threads that make up the fabric of our universe, conflicting forces that wage war against each other in hopes of gaining the upper hand and overcoming the other. Virtue versus desire, faith versus logic, tradition versus change, light versus darkness, (Republicans versus Democrats,) and good versus evil-all opposing facets of their respective fields that switch off control in a never-ending dance of push and pull. We witness one of these never-ending dances first hand in C.S. Lewis' novel, The Screwtape Letters, as a high-ranked demon named Screwtape advises his naà ¯ve and inexperienced nephew on the best methods to use in corrupting his assigned ?Patient? and preventing the ?Enemy? from gaining the ?Patient? for himself. But though it may come from the evil perspective of an expert demon, the piece is really a reflection of the internal struggle in humans between good and evil, Lord and Satan, on a small, subtle, and discreet level. The conflict portrayed in this novel addresses the everyday sins and mindsets that more often than not lead to the downfall of a seemingly good and righteous person (unlike the focus on absolute evils such as outright dishonesty and murder common in other works on morality). The main character?s struggle plays out this idea that it is the little things a person does that have the biggest impact in his or her life, an idea that can be applied not only to the salvation of our spiritual immortality, but also to the value of our mortal lives as well. We learn from Screwtape?s many letters of advice to his nephew Wormwood (thirty-one letters to be exact) the many strategies that evil spirits and demons employ in order to secure human spiritual morality. Contrary... ...dentify our mistakes and learn from them in order for us to reap any benefit from those mistakes, unfortunately for us it is the small mistakes that are the most dangerous and the hardest to identify and correct. Lucky for us, Screwtape didn?t do a very good job of hiding his letters to his nephew because it means less work for us and more trouble for all demon-kind. ?It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one?the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,? Your affectionate uncle Screwtape (Lewis 60-61). Cited Sources ?Lewis, Clive S. The Screwtape Letters. San Francisco: HarperCollins, Inc., 2001.

The Iceman

This 1936 painting entitled â€Å"The Iceman† done by Jacob Lawrence was completed sometime during the Harlem Renaissance. The painting is a typical portrait of and an honest reflection of daily life in 1930s Harlem, New York. It can easily represent any urban city during this time period. The artist uses the painting to show the connection, or lack thereof, between the neighborhood’s residents, as they seem to go about their daily routines without the social interaction that allied people during times of struggle.Lawrence employs symbolism and imagery to show how the neighborhood lacked connection. On first glance of the painting, three residents are noticed, all in their own apartments, being sold ice by the iceman standing on the street, and his helper. As the apartments are all in such close proximity of one another, one would believe that the residents would be interacting with each other. But at a closer glance, it is seen that they are all minding their own busin ess. This is strange for the era. It is well known that during the 1930s, segregation and racism were at their worst.In the north, tensions were high between the black and white classes due to the increased number of African-Americans migrating to larger cities. In the minds of the whites, the blacks were â€Å"taking over†. In most cases, when tragic or intense situations like this occur, it is typical for people to ban together and tread through the problems as a whole community – except in this case. Whether or not these people were real Harlem residents, it is quite unlikely that this separation of community would have really happened.Community is defined as â€Å"an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location†, with â€Å"interacting† being the keyword. The characters made up in this painting include the iceman and his helper with the pushcart, a window washer, a woman possibly ironing or cooking, a man trying to hold onto his dog, and a darkened figure in an alley. Though these people appear to be financially on the poorer side, they still go about their lives separately, and with the ease of daily routine. It would be expected that at least two of these characters would be interacting with each other, for the sake of survival.Surprisingly, though, none of the residents are looking at each other, and they seem not to even notice the person living next to them. It is possible that Lawrence used this imagery after witnessing a lack of connection within a community such as this one. He might have wanted to influence Harlem residents to unify during these times of segregation. Jacob Lawrence used subtle symbolism to convey the neighborhood’s physical lack of connection. It is not immediately seen, but if one were to be inside the painting at the scene, there would be tangible evidence of the lack of connection – the fire ladder.It doesn’t seem to have any initial importance, oth er than being a source of escape, but in taking a closer look, it can easily be a symbol of disconnect within the community. Most fire escape ladders are constructed so that when they are necessary to be used, they can be pushed downward and the ladder will reach all the way to the ground. In this painting, the ladder does not reach the ground, making it more difficult for its users to escape. The ladder not connecting to the ground can be paralleled with the residents not connecting with one another.Tragedy has proven time and time again to be a unifier of worlds when people seem to be at their most distant, especially for African-Americans in the 1930s, except in the case of â€Å"The Iceman†, in which the community remained separated, even though their lives overlapped. Jacob Lawrence seemed to want to bring about a wave of pride in his people by painting this and using artistic elements to influence his audience. He put forth the use of subtle symbolism and imagery to rev eal a lack of connection within this Harlem neighborhood.

Gold and Diamond Mining of Africa Essay

* Diamond mining in Africa Ever since the Kimberley diamond strike of 1868, South Africa has been a world leader in diamond production. The primary South African sources of diamonds, including seven large diamond mines around the country, are controlled by the De Beers Consolidated Mines Company. In 2003, De Beers’s operations accounted for 94% of the nation’s total diamond output of 11,900,000 carats. Nicky Oppenheimer, the current Chairman of DeBeers. * The life of the miners The search for diamonds is not exactly easy. Many miners and diamond diggers in sub-Saharan Africa travel great distances to find work and submit to gruelingly long hours for low wages – or sometimes no wages – in substandard conditions. Child labor has long been a problem in informal diamond mines, especially during times of war. Children have often been exploited to do excavation work because they are small enough to be lowered into small, narrow pits by ropes to dig out sacks of dirt, which is in turn washed by other children in search of diamonds. During Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, children were often used as soldiers and workers in the rich Koidu diamond mines that funded the country’s rebels. USAID launched the Kono Peace Diamond Alliance in 2002 to try to improve the working conditions in the mines – particularly for children. But it is an uphill battle across Africa to get children who are either family breadwinners, or fending for themselves or conscripted into slave-like labor to stop working and go to school. A child solider in Africa Land is often cleared and vegetated areas dug up to create open pit mines in he rushed search for diamond deposits, leaving them unsuitable for other farming activities. Informal mining in hilly areas also leads to erosion – and, in turn, flooding. The salt, heavy minerals and chemical products from mining equipment can run off into rivers and pollute vital water sources for mining communities and people living downstream. * gold mining in Africa South Africa accounted for 15% of the world’s gold production in 2002 and 12% in 2005, though the nation had produced as much as 30% of world output as recently as 1993. Despite declining production, South Africa’s gold exports were valued at $3. billion USD in 2005. Almost 50% of the world’s gold reserves are found in South Africa. Barrick Gold Corporation is the largest pure gold miningcompany in the world, with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and four regional business units (RBU’s) located in Australia, Africa, North America and South America. Barrick is currently undertaking mining and exploration projects in Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea, the United States, Canada, Dominican Republic, Australia, Peru, Chile, Russia, South Africa,Pakistan, Colombia, Argentina and Tanzania. For 2008, it produced 7. million ounces of gold at a cash cost of US $443/ounce. As of December 31, 2008 its proven and probable gold mineral reserves stand at 138. 5 million ounces. Peter monk, the wizard of gold mining * The life of gold miners The unknown factor in South Africa is the future of labor costs. The mines employ several hundred thousand miners underground: half the production costs are for wages. Most of the gold miners are members of the black National Union of Mineworkers, which is pressing hard both for political and social reform, and for better wages and working conditions for its members. But the long-delayed beginnings of political reform in South Africa in the late 1980s coincided with a slump in gold prices. The South African gold mines, many of them a century old, were by then the world’s deepest, and were technically very difficult and financially very expensive to operate even in spite of the low wages paid to the miners. The quality of the ore was slowly dropping: the average gold ore now averages less than 5 grams of gold per tonne. Winnie Mandela is on record as saying to black miners, â€Å"You hold the golden key to our liberation. The moment you stop digging gold and diamonds, that is the moment you will be free. † She could not be more wrong. If the gold mines close, the economic disaster will be visited most on the poorer section of society, the blacks. The South African reforms were predicated absolutely on a stable and healthy economy. In 1999, the price of gold dropped to a low point around $250/oz. This was very bad news for South African gold companies, South African gold miners, and the South African government. Gold companies scrambled to reorganize and streamline their operations. By the time the price again reached $290 again in early 2000, the gold industry had changed dramatically, in South Africa and globally. Health problems of gold miners who worked underground include decreased life expectancy; increased frequency of cancer of the trachea, bronchus, lung, stomach, and liver; increased frequency of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB), silicosis, and pleural diseases; increased frequency of insect-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever; noise-induced hearing loss; increased prevalence of certain bacterial and viral diseases; and diseases of the blood, skin, and musculoskeletal system. These problems are briefly documented in gold miners from Australia, North America, South America, and Africa. In general, HIV infection or excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption tended to exacerbate existing health problems. Miners who used elemental mercury to amalgamate and extract gold were heavily contaminated with mercury. Among individuals exposed occupationally, concentrations of mercury in their air, fish diet, hair, urine, blood, and other tissues significantly exceeded all criteria proposed by various national and international regulatory agencies for protection of human health.