passport to culture The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare Lightwire Theater arts education SchoolTime Teacher s Guide

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1 passport SchoolTime to culture Teacher s Guide The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare Lightwire Theater arts education Generous support for SchoolTime provided, in part, by NEW JERSEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

2 arts education NEW JERSEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER contents On Stage 3 Wired for fun Meet the Artists 4 Using tech creatively Did You Know? 5 Putting light into motion In the Classroom 6 Related activities and resources Kid Power! Through energy efficiency and conservation, kids can help preserve our planet s rich natural resources and promote a healthy environment. TIP OF THE DAY The light brigade Lightwire Theater uses and manipulates electricity through electroluminescent wire (see page 5) to bring the characters of The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare to life. Electricity is also important in our lives. Discuss how electricity is used at school and how its use can be optimized through conservation. Students can help control the consumption of electricity in their school by forming an energy patrol that is charged with shutting down computers, lights and other devices when not in use. The class can compile tips on saving energy and have one read each morning during announcements. Made possible through the generosity of the PSEG Foundation. Kofi Dennis, Wolf Trap Master teaching artist, engages preschoolers in an exciting dramatic experience that promotes learning in Early Learning Through the Arts: the NJ Wolf Trap Residency Program. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) Arts Education Department presents the 16 th season of the Passport to Culture SchoolTime Performance Series. Teacher s Resource Guide This guide will help you prepare your class for an enriching experience at our SchoolTime Passport to Culture Performance. We provide discussion ideas, activities and reading resources that promote arts literacy in your classroom and link to New Jersey s Core Curriculum Content Standards. You can find additional resources online at artsed.njpac.org. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this guide to any class attending a SchoolTime performance (all other rights reserved). NJPAC Arts Education At NJPAC, our mission is to join with parents, teachers and community to cultivate an appreciation of the arts for all children in all schools. We believe the arts provide an effective means of knowing and learning that helps children find the self-esteem, poise and confidence they need to succeed in every facet of life. Our innovative programs are designed to engage the artist in every child. In-School Residencies NJPAC brings the joy of dance, music and theater directly into your classroom with In-School Residencies. Our teaching artists create stimulating performing arts experiences that engage students imaginations and encourage self-expression. Residencies are customized to meet the curricular goals of the classroom teacher. Each residency ends with a performance that teaches students to work together and believe in themselves. SchoolTime and Family Performances Open a world of culture to your students through performances of music, dance, storytelling, theater, and puppetry through professional stage productions by local, national and international artists. Performances are enriched by teacher resource guides as well as Q&A sessions with the artists. Arts Training Programs Students interested in acting, dance, musical theater, vocal or instrumental music will find an artistic home at NJPAC where creative expression and solid technique serve as cornerstones of the Arts Training programs. Teaching Artists with exceptional professional experience guide students at all levels of arts learning (beginner, intermediate and advanced) to greater creative understanding and self-confidence. visit artsed.njpac.org Find additional resources by clicking on SchoolTime Performances 2 Lightwire Theater njpac.org

3 on stage Beaming with delight By Eric Grode Amid the dog acts and iron-lunged singers on America s Got Talent, one company carved out its own eyecatching niche. Lightwire Theater, the innovative dance troupe, didn t make it beyond the semifinals of that TV competition, but it earned raves from its judges and also offered a glimpse of some of the characters who will appear at NJPAC in a pair of short pieces: The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare. Lightwire achieves its mesmerizing effects in almost total darkness, which adds a whole additional level of complexity to its puppetry-meetsballet performances. In lieu of the usual spotlights and footlights, the New Orleans-based company wraps its dancers in flexible wire that lights up in different colors. We see what amounts to the embellished outlines of the performers, who dart, weave, jump, and crawl as they contort their bodies into various ducks, rabbits and other animals big and small. The production relies heavily on a witty variety of musical cues (ranging from pop to classical to jazz) and the performers own ingenuity to tell the stories, which will be familiar to most young audience members. Modern touches like cellphones and actionpacked sequences help translate the stories into ones that will entertain children and adults alike. After the show, audiences can explore with the performers the precise combination of lighting and choreography that Lightwire uses to create its whimsical tableaux. A big part of the appeal is showing people how creative you can get with simple materials, says Corbin Popp, the company s cofounder and current technical director. It s a great combination of art and science. Creating these wire full-body puppets and then figuring out how to make them move takes hundreds of hours, Popp says. But as somebody wrote more than 2,500 years ago, slowly and surely wins the race. Eric Grode is a freelance arts writer and a professor at Syracuse University s Goldring Arts Journalism Program. For plot outlines of The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare, go to artsed.njpac.org and click to SchoolTime Performances. njpac.org Lightwire Theater 3

4 MEET THE ARTISTS Glow POPP CARNEY business From ballet to biochemistry, from Fulbright scholar to The Phantom of the Opera, Corbin Popp has tried his hand at a variety of things. Students will get a glimpse of yet another endeavor when Lightwire Theater presents his and Ian Carney s hightech gloss on two beloved children s stories, The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare. Popp and Carney met while dancing in the Broadway musical Movin Out and quickly struck up a friendship. Before long, they and their wives converged in Carney s hometown of New Orleans, where the two men began finding different ways to mesh performance and technology through their company, Corbian Visual Arts and Dance. When we get together, Popp says, all we do is build things and spit new ideas out. The best new ideas came from their discovery of electroluminescent wire, which can be lit from within, obscuring its wearer s body while still giving himself or herself the flexibility to dance. This new technology convinced Popp and Carney to establish Lightwire, a second company with a catchier name. The four performers soon assembled a new piece called Darwin the Dinosaur, complete with light-saber battles and other pop-culture tidbits, which led to extensive touring, a series of appearances on the TV competition America s Got Talent and finally this new show. There have been a few gaps along the way. Popp says he and his wife took a job as cruise-line dancers at one point and came back with twins on the way. He has scaled back his performing since becoming a father and now lives in Mesa, Arizona, where he juggles his Lightwire responsibilities (his new title is technical director) with yet another chapter in his life: Popp will graduate from dental school in June. But for artists as creative as Popp and the rest of the Lightwire troupe, even dental school can provide stage material. When a character s mouth opens, he says, it s actually a dental articulator upside-down. E.G. 4 Lightwire Theater njpac.org

5 DID YOU KNOW? All the light moves To create an alley cat, a skeleton is built of electroluminescent wire and worn as a full-body puppet. Dancers are dressed completely in black to appear invisible to the audience. I had seen it here and there at festivals, but just as a little flourish, like someone s hat. I d never really seen it applied as an entire piece. Corbin Popp is describing electroluminescent wire, a form of copper wire that is wrapped with a phosphor (a fluorescent substance), allowing for all sorts of innovative stage lighting. It generates no heat, it s remarkably pliable, and hundreds of feet of it can be powered for hours by nothing more than AA batteries. It blends the flexible charm of Christmas tree lights with the retro-futuristic appeal of Day-Glo. (The closest comparison is probably to the shimmering contours on the costumes in the movie Tron.) And as half of the high-tech dance troupe Lightwire Theater, which will present a double bill of The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare at NJPAC, Popp used this discovery as the gateway to a whole new way of staging full-body puppetry. Once Popp and Lightwire cofounder Ian Carney realized just how versatile this wire was, they began devising ways to create dance/theater pieces with it. We build everything, Popp says, so it has to be incredibly cheap and incredibly sturdy. EL wire, as it s known, fit both definitions. The performers whose outfits, like everything else on the stage, are spraypainted black wear what are basically elaborate skeletons wrapped in the wire. When the lights are turned off and the wires are lit up (Popp designed the electrical systems from scratch), the dancers bodies become invisible. With the help of skateboards, shin guards, Ping-Pong balls and other run-ofthe-mill ingredients, Lightwire has found a visually striking way to put its members bodies into fluid but essentially invisible motion. The bright wires create what Popp calls the cursive style of a pencil sketch come to life, and the performers contort their bodies to create the outlines of a menagerie of animals. The company performs in almost complete darkness, which requires meticulously plotted-out choreography both on stage and off. The performance aspect in the dark is a whole other ballgame, Popp says. You can panic a bit, and the backstage choreography has to be every bit as precise as what you see on stage. Although the art of puppetry aims to make the performers as inconspicuous as possible, Popp says Lightwire is happy to demystify the process: We love showing people how it all works after the show. Popp, who has assumed the title of Lightwire s technical director, says he and Carney enjoy exploring new forms of technology and how they can be used in the service of their productions. But with EL wire, he says, the appeal was obvious. All we had to do was see it, he says. We knew that if this didn t succeed, we just hadn t tried hard enough. E.G. njpac.org Lightwire Theater 5

6 In the classroom decide which character is his/her favorite, draw a picture of that character and present the drawing to the class. Ask each presenter about the character in the reading, compared to the character on stage at NJPAC. Did the character exist in both versions? If yes, which rendition of the character does the presenter prefer? Why? (1.3, 1.4) * Numbers indicate the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standard(s) supported by the activity. More Resources Like all of Aesop s fables, The Tortoise and the Hare carries a lesson: Slow and steady wins the race. Books for Students and Teachers Carle, Eric. Eric Carle s Treasury of Classic Stories for Children. New York: Orchard Books, Before the Performance 1. The week of the performance, feature a fable a day in read-aloud sessions. At the end of the week, ask your students to choose their favorites and imagine they are book illustrators. Each student produces a book jacket (an 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper folded in half to create a front cover, back cover and interior pages). On the front cover, each student draws a scene or character from his/her chosen fable and prints the title (copying a model you print on the board or without a model, depending on skill level). On the back cover, students print their names, name of school and date (again, give them models to copy, if necessary). Leave the interior pages blank. Artwork can be displayed in the classroom or brought home by the students who may want to discuss the fable and the drawing within their households. (1.3, 1.4) * 2. Verizon s Thinkfinity.org offers an informative module on animal diversity. (Click Resources, then type Animal Diversity into the keyword search.) Since The Tortoise and the Hare and The Ugly Duckling both deal with differences among animals (how each is unique; how their distinctions make it possible for each to do what is needed), this ties in neatly. Students who work through this module 6 Lightwire Theater njpac.org must observe closely and focus. Students attending a live performance must do the same. This module provides the opportunity for students to learn about animal diversity while also building skills of observation and concentration, which will serve them well at the theater. (1.4) After the Performance 1. Lightwire Theater has put together a collection of excellent activities that will entertain your students while helping them to remember, recount and gather lasting meaning from their experiences at NJPAC. These activities also correspond to many standards of the Common Core. You can access them at kidsentertainment.net/roster/ ugly-duckling/docs/uglyduckling_sg_ Corbian.pdf. (1.4) 2. After seeing the two stories at NJPAC, your students will have a basis for comparing them to other renderings of the tales. Choose versions of The Tortoise and the Hare and The Ugly Duckling to read in class. (Abridged and illustrated versions may be best on the K-2 level.) If your students can read aloud, break them into smaller reading circles to share the stories; otherwise read the stories aloud to the group as a whole. Afterward, each student should Pinkney, Jerry. Aesop s Fables. Chronicle Books, DVDs The Ugly Duckling. Rabbit Ears Entertainment, Based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen with narration by Cher, illustrations by Robert Van Nutt, music by Patrick Ball. Bill Cosby in Aesop s Fables: The Tortoise & The Hare. VHS. Karl Lorimar Home Video, Animation mixed with live action featuring Bill Cosby as Aesop. Videos youtube.com/watch?v=2ojl_y0h_um Promotional video for Lightwire Theater s The Ugly Duckling. Websites Thinkfinity.org Verizon Foundation website for classroom educational resource material. kids-pages.com/stories.htm Stories to read online (from Aesop, H.C. Andersen and others) with links to riddles, coloring pages and more. aesopfables.com/aesopsel.html Eighty-six fables selected for simplicity of narrative; listed with morals for quick reference. kidsentertainment.net Website for Lightwire Theater features additional information and a study guide.

7 Teaching Science Through Theater (Grades PreK 2) By Sharon J. Sherman, Ed.D. There are many ways to integrate theater and science for elementary school students. Have students review the elements of theater as they discuss the performance. In preparation for the students design, construction and lighting of a miniature set for a play, talk about theater professionals who work together to design scenery and bring it to life with proper lighting. Have students work in small groups and take on such roles as artistic director, production designer and lighting designer. (See vocabulary of theater, below.) First, students can gain a basic knowledge of electricity by reading Arthur s New Power or The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip. Review the books content. Explain that students will experiment with batteries and bulbs to make a flashlight bulb burn brightly. Through this activity, you can develop basic concepts of electricity. Give each group two D-cell batteries in good condition, one flashlight bulb and several pieces of bell wire and tape. Have students figure out ways to light the bulbs by creating simple circuits. Then provide additional wire, more powerful batteries, bulbs, switches and alligator clips, and let them explore series and parallel circuits. What are all the possible ways to light a bulb using the materials provided? Which ways work? Which do not? Why do they work? What makes the bulb light? Have students draw circuits that work and those that do not work. Students can show how a series circuit is arranged by holding hands in a circle. If two children in the circle stop holding hands, the circuit breaks. When a circuit contains many light bulbs connected to one another in a series and one bulb burns out, all the bulbs go out. In a parallel circuit, however, each bulb has its own linkage to the battery. If one bulb goes out, the others shine brightly. Have students act out examples of parallel circuits. Have each group design scenery and stage lighting, using batteries, bulbs and other simple equipment to build a smallscale model of the lighting for the scenery. Experimenting with lighting from different angles, they can find the best positions for the lights to minimize shadows. Assess students understanding of simple circuits. Discuss the function of theater lighting. How does it enhance a production? Teaching Science Through the Arts is made possible through the generous support of Roche. visit artsed.njpac.org Find additional resources by clicking on SchoolTime Performances Lightwire Theater vocabulary list actor a person who interprets a role and performs it in a production. artistic director the person who chooses the material and oversees the entire theatrical production. The artistic director brings together and coordinates the efforts of many people: author, set designer, artisans, musicians, actors, and technicians. audio technician the person who is responsible for sound during a performance, including the music and sound effects. choreography the patterns of movement and stillness, including dancing, composed by a choreographer or director to enliven a production. director the person who conceives of an overall concept for a production, supervises all of its elements and guides the actors in their performances. gesture a movement of the body, hand or arm to express an emotion or intention. lighting designer the person who creates a visual concept for a production through the design and use of lighting. production designer the person who conceives of the look of the entire production: designing the props, set and costumes; working with the lighting designer and the soundtrack designer; and coordinating any other elements having to do with the production environment. props properties or items used on stage to help create a sense of place, such as an envelope, a flag or a map. puppet a representation of a person or figure controlled by the puppeteer by means of wire or hand. puppeteer a person who controls and animates puppets. scene a division of a play, often part of an act and usually played without changing the scenery. scrim a stage curtain that can become transparent or opaque, depending on whether it is lit from in front or behind. script the written text detailing what happens, including what is to be said, during a play or performance. set the arrangement of scenery and props on stage. wings the areas offstage, right and left, from and to which performers make entrances and exits. njpac.org Lightwire Theater 7

8 Acknowledgments as of 11/27/12 arts education NJPAC Arts Education programs are made possible by the generosity of: Automatic Data Processing, Bank of America, The Arts Education Endowment Fund in Honor of Raymond G. Chambers, Leon & Toby Cooperman, William Randolph Hearst Foundation, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, McCrane Foundation, Merck Company Foundation, Albert & Katharine Merck, The Prudential Foundation, PSEG Foundation, Marian & David Rocker, The Sagner Family Foundation, The Star-Ledger/Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Verizon, Victoria Foundation, Wells Fargo, John & Suzanne Willian / Goldman Sachs Gives and The Women s Association of NJPAC. Additional support is provided by: Advance Realty, Anonymous, C.R. Bard Foundation, BD, The Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation, Berkeley College, Allen & Joan Bildner, Bloomberg, Ann and Stan Borowiec, Jennifer Chalsty, The Johnny Mercer Foundation, Chase, Edison Properties, Veronica Goldberg Foundation, Meg & Howard Jacobs, Johnson & Johnson, The MCJ Amelior Foundation, The New Jersey Cultural Trust, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Novo Nordisk, Panasonic Corporation of North America, Pechter Foundation, PNC Foundation on behalf of the PNC Grow Up Great program, The Provident Bank Foundation, E. Franklin Robbins Charitable Trust, Roche, TD Charitable Foundation, Turrell Fund, and The Blanche M. & George L. Watts Mountainside Community Foundation. NEW JERSEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER One Center Street Newark, New Jersey Administration: Arts Education Hotline: schooltime@njpac.org Writer: Eric Grode Curriculum Consultant: Mary Prussak Editor: Linda Fowler Designer: Bonnie Felt NJPAC Guest Reader: Stacey Daly NJPAC Teacher s Guide Review Committee: Laura Ingoglia Judith Israel Mary Lou Johnston Amy Tenzer Copyright 2013 New Jersey Performing Arts Center All Rights Reserved New Jersey Performing Arts Center William J. Marino... Chairman John Schreiber... President & CEO Sandra Bowie... Vice President of Arts Education Sanaz Hojreh... Assistant Vice President of Arts Education Verushka Spirito... Associate Director of Performances Caitlin Evans Jones... Director of In-School Programs Faye Competello... Director of Arts Training Linda Fowler... Editor of Teacher s Resource Guides visit artsed.njpac.org Find additional resources by clicking on SchoolTime Performances or scan the QR code displayed here. For even more arts integration resources, please go to Thinkfinity.org, the Verizon Foundation s signature digital learning platform, designed to improve educational and literacy achievement. Coming to NJPAC SchoolTime passport to culture Teacher s Guide A Brown Bear, a Caterpillar, and a Moon Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia arts education@ NEW JERSEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Generous support for SchoolTime provided, in part, by A Brown Bear, a Caterpillar, and a Moon April 11 and 12 Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia presents an adaptation of stories by award-winning children s book author Eric Carle. For grades PreK-2. Call (973) Lightwire Theater njpac.org