Isn't art vital to human development? When I say development I do not mean the physical development that we all go through prior to adulthood. Rather I am speaking of our intellectual and emotional development, of our molding and exploration of that with distinguishes human beings from other animals. From what I've seen and read, every art form develops different aspects of our existence. Visual art develops focus and attention to detail. It inspires the mind with color and perception. Music is like learning a new language. It develops our sense of timing and devotion to time management. Theater develops an appreciation of vocabulary, rhythm, and the journey that gets us to our goals. It also increases an understanding and appreciation of history. Dance connects us to our bodies, fires up our kinesthetic awareness, improves our sense of time and space, increases memory for patterns and series, improves our awareness of our environment and those around us, not to mention the countless physical benefits. Don't we need to experience and develop all these things. These benefits have been shown to cross over into other areas of life: math, science, reading,history. Life skills!
I'm reading a book called: Lighting Their Fires by Rafe Esquith. It's about teaching/raising children. He quoted Mark Twain saying "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." It seems to me this can be applied to the arts as well. The benefits are there for the taking. If we were to allow ourselves an hour a week for each of these activities what possibilities could we open up for ourselves. Instead of checking out in front of the TV, we could invigorate those previously dormant areas of our brains and our potentials.
Please feel free to add benefits I've left out.
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While each art form focuses on developing aspects of existence, I feel as though they are all so interwoven that each developing element spills into every category of expression. Each of the benefits listed apply to every art, with the exception of dance's kinetic awareness and physical benefits (part of why dance is increasingly important in an age of lazy bodies). To me, it appears that all others share an appreciation for history, attention to detail, memory for pattern and series, etc. It would depend on the involvement of each artist with their work...the depth of experiencing these things is certainly easier in different forms, but personally painting gives me a heightened awareness of my body, rhythm, pattern, and space, as well as the color and detail aspects.
ReplyDeletePS, I love your blog. It makes me think.
-Emily
I think the developmental potential of participating in theatre depends which side of the stage you are on. From an audience standpoint, I agree that one who views theatre "develops an appreciation of vocabulary [and] rhythm," among other things, although I think the primary learning potential is in the invitation into a world that is different than one's own, and the exploration of that particular world. (I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the journey that gets us to our goals," however. Could you elaborate?)
ReplyDeleteBut from a performer's standpoint, the art of acting lets an individual explore the human experience: putting oneself at specific points in the range of personalities and/or emotional potentials that are possible for a given human to be or feel. The journey of the actor's craft is an education in emotion. As such, the actor can learn to appreciate humans for their individual perspectives. In the same way, the actor can appreciate the emotional human core of a particular piece of art.
AWESOME!!! Thanks for posting! I agree with everything you both said.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant by "the journey..." is this. When performing on stage one must spend a substantial amount of time learning the script, the blocking, the history, ect. They put a lot of work into putting on a show that could last just 2 hours. The journey of putting in all of that effort is rewarding in itself rather than the applause of the audience. I think there are probably performers out there who think they could care less about the journey, that they are in it for the attention and applause... I think however, that it would be very hard for someone who absolutely hated all the learning and effort to put it in, just for the applause. Did that make any sense.
Most performers feel good about themselves when it comes to the performance because they put in all the work, they learned, and the feel like they accomplished something,... AND then, of course, because people enjoyed the performance.
I think the other thing... is that you can't learn any of these things out of books. You can not understand completely the benefits of what art can teach you just by reading about it, you must DO IT!!!
ReplyDeleteMaria once told me that if you don't love the journey you are taking to reach the goal, you have the wrong goal (She was specifically talking about how her daughter wanted to professionally play clarinet but didn't want to practice or take four years to study it in school).
ReplyDelete-Emily