HOW TO WORK IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY WAY WITH OPERA AND ANIMATION: A PROPOSAL WITH THE TALE OF CINDERELLA

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1 HOW TO WORK IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY WAY WITH OPERA AND ANIMATION: A PROPOSAL WITH THE TALE OF CINDERELLA Xavier Mínguez-López 1, Rafael Fernández-Maximiano 2, Ana-María Botella- Nicolás 2, Silvia Martínez-Gallego 2 1 Universitat de València, Departamento de Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura (SPAIN) 2 Universitat de València, Departamento de Didáctica de la Expresión Musical, Plástica y Corporal (SPAIN) Abstract Arts (literature, music, visual arts and corporal expression) are one of the fields where the isolation of its disciplines is most evident. This artificial disconnection started some centuries ago in order to include them in the academia. This supposed, on the one hand, the study of the different arts in isolated academic spaces without any relation between them, and, on the other hand, depriving the students of seeing art as a whole. As a consequence, showing the different disciplines as a unique way of human creativity has been neglected. In our opinion, the new approach built on the basic competences suggested by the European Commission and implemented in the EU, opens a way to the use of interdisciplinary methodology. In this paper, we would like to show an interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature, music, audio-visual and body arts using opera and animation as example of total arts. To that end, we compare two very well known works (Rossini s La Cenerentola and Disney s Cinderella) in order to show the possibilities of working with teachers of different subjects together. We suggest two different kinds of work. The first one is the creation of a musical show and the second one an interactive web page about the tale of Cinderella and its adaptations. Keywords: Multidisciplinary, arts education, opera and animation. 1 INTRODUCTION The aim of this paper is to present a proposal of how to work in an interdisciplinary way with opera and animation. It is based in the research of the group GRIEMAL 1 with, taken as an example, the use of animation and opera as tools for interdisciplinary work in artistic education. In fact all this research was based in he interpretation of the new law of education (LOE 2 ) and the idea that there was lot of work on this direction. In one of our works as a group we can find our objectives in our research related: The inclusion of the basic competences in the Ley Orgánica de Educación (LOE 2006), as one of the basic elements of the curriculum and reference for the evaluation, opened a discussion into the educative community that still today is a mater of study and research. These competences answer to the combination of skills, knowledge, aptitudes, and attitudes and to the disposition of learning and to the knowledge of how to learn. In addition, we might say that the term basic, which belongs to the term itself, refers to the consideration of indispensable learning we should accurately orientate the educational and learning process towards. [1] (Botella Nicolás, Fernández Maximiano, & Mínguez López, 2012, p. 3959) Beside this, and related to the renovation of the studies of Teachers training with the inclusion in the Bolonia process we should be aware of new ways of teaching at the University: La implantación del grado es relativamente reciente con lo cual permite plantearse mejoras que conlleven dotar a los futuros maestros de herramientas que optimicen sus conocimientos del área artística. Así, se llevará a cabo una colaboración horizontal basada en la cooperación entre profesores de las diferentes áreas artísticas: Educación Plástica y Música. Por ello, se plantea la puesta en práctica de una metodología innovadora de índole cooperativa, revisando y renovando las guías existentes e incorporando nuevas metodologías educativas. Esto 1 Grup de Recerca Interdisciplinar en Educacó Musical, Artística i Literaria. 2 Ley Orgánica de Educación. Proceedings of EDULEARN14 Conference 7th-9th July 2014, Barcelona, Spain 7267 ISBN:

2 ayudará a la mejora de la percepción y aplicación de las materias por parte del alumnado. [2] (Martínez Gallego, Botella Nicolás, & Fernández Maximiano, 2014, p. 311) 1.1 Griemal Firstly, we would like to introduce the GRIEMAL group. GRIEMAL is a group of university teachers involved in literature teaching, musical education, corporal expression and visual arts teaching. It must be said that the components are also professionals of these artistic fields outside the university and the research matters. The group is focused mainly on education and especially on how to teach arts in a global way. As seen in Figure 1, all the arts are suitable to be taught in combination with one or more artistic disciplines, and used as a unique expression itself. Figure 1: Scheme of GRIEMAL interests So far, some articles and class resources have been produced: a research about Disney film of Cinderella, compared with Rossini s La Cenerentola. From this study a web page has been started 3 to make different activities related to this kind of global work, which is part of an innovation project granted by the Universitat de València. In addition, the group is taking part in an Interdisciplinary workshop for training teachers and it is producing teaching and learning material to work with more than one art at once. This workshop offers the chance of having a realistic point of view of the different processes and a rich proves bench for this research issue. Figure 2: How arts can be combined. As shown in Figure 2 the reality in arts is that most of them never come alone. How many different expression we get from the combination of these four elements? When literature and music are working together the result is songs, but also there is the chance to find poems and literature which treats about music or music that does it about stories. Actually it is difficult to find pure products in

3 art, especially in modern times with the multiplication of electronic devices. In fact, attending to this scheme, it is possible to emphasize two products that include all the arts: opera and animation where we can find stories and music and also the use of visual arts and drama or other kind of corporal expression like dance. It is because of its quality of total arts that these products are chosen for our first research. 2 THE PRELIMINARS Obviously, this approach involves also the research about the texts that are used in the conception of those works. As an example, if there is intended to bring to the classroom a proposal about Cinderella, it is a must to study the text previously: which are the roots of the tales, how Disney made his cartoon or how Rossini wrote the opera, etc. To start with the interdisciplinary project it was selected a folktale with many versions. Cinderella seemed perfect for the purposes, as there were a Disney film and a Rossini opera and so many others versions of this character. In addition, it was figured out the production conditions and the relationship of the artists with their time. After that, one of the conclusions is that both authors were very conservative related to the opera or the animation that it was being produced at the time. Obviously, the role of music in both works was studied, especially how the style was selected, how it was addressed to different audiences like children/adults (Fernández Maximiano, 2013) or noble/bourgeois. It was also under revision the version of Cinderella folktale used and how the changes were made in order to fit in their purposes. 3 THE PROPOSAL The proposal itself it is a set of activities related to the original folktale and intended to be worked in secondary school. After this preliminary work, we can find several suitable activities with Cinderella but today we suggest two: to make a musical and to work with a webpage. Both activities involve different art expressions and also different support. The musical would be mainly addressed to secondary school, though it could be also used in primary school with the necessary modifications. It involves many areas: Language, Literature, Music and Art, but also Physical education (necessary to make choreographies); Design and technology can collaborate to make stages; History can contribute with the contextualization of the films. The most interesting approach is to build a project in the school, not just in the classroom although it seems possible to do the musical just with one area involved. This is not a new resource; in fact many schools could have been working with musicals, but with this sequence, a wider approach can be find because specialists in each discipline are involved and all of them, with their specific skills, contribute to the final result. For that end, one possible sequence could be this one: To watch pieces of the film and pieces of the opera, especially where the songs and arias appear. It is the time to speak about when does students think it is better to introduce a song. To work in order to transform the tale. Possible changes are: the time and to rewrite the plot in the future, or changing the space and put the plot in the school, etc. To divide the tale in different scenes in order to work by groups. Each group will develop one scene. This division makes the job much easier. 3.1 Literature The Literature section contains four versions of the tale of Cinderella: Chinese, North American Indian, the Grimm and the Perrault versions. It seems interesting to compare them, to realize that the same idea has been developed in very far contexts with the same roots. To go deeply in this idea, can be used the Cinderella creator, that is, a game of cards with the most important topics of the tale that can be combined and changed to create new versions of it. This resource can be also used in the web version. Finally the own version of Cinderella is created and developed. This material is based for the rest of the disciplines of the musical. 7269

4 3.2 Music Second step would be working with the music. The suggestion is make a rap version of the lyrics in the same way that the opera works, that is said, using the lyrics to develop the plot. This style doesn t demand high knowledge of music and it is suitable to bring to the classroom computers, tablets or even smart-phones, as there are many APP to creates rap beats and patterns. Also could be to provide some Rap beats. After that, it could be possible to work with choreography and chorus and start the rehearsal to work with all the musical elements together. 3.3 Visual arts And, finally, the visual arts section includes a selection of images of Cinderella taken from books, films, and opera. In order to help students some clues are suggested to comparing the different images and realize how they configure a mental image of the character. Similarly, various stages of La Cenerentola, can be showed: a classical one, childish, futuristic, etc. Then, customs, decorates and stage parts can be designed and worked at the classroom. It is possible to include many other features like a Lotte Reiniger [4] (Reiniger, 1922) short animation film (figure 3) where can be added voices and music to synchronize [5] (Reiniger, 1922) 3.4 WEBPAGE Figure 3: Photogram of Lotte Reiniger s Cinderella. Besides the creation of the musical and working as a supportive material for the different disciplines, a web page is working as class-enforcement didactics materials. Some of the concepts worked in the theoretical preparation of the activities can be found in the web site with solutions, web-quests, etc. It allows the students to work independently on the subject playing and surfing from one section to another. Further more, the web site gives the chance of working with multimedia staff in order to develop the concepts of the different disciplines. On the one hand, the web supports video and it is an easy way to show the most relevant passages of Disney s Cinderella and Rossini s La Cenerentola. There it can be founded some information to help students to put it in context and to understand better the author s choices. The Cinderella Creator can also be implemented to the web site with multiple-choice menus to develop new stories. For instance changing the mood or the characteristics of the different roles, choosing another timing and place to develop the plot, adding extra plots to combine with the original one The webpage can be used, as a tool to evaluate the whole experience, either trough a questionnaire or trough objectives proves etc. 7270

5 4 CONCLUSIONS As far as the whole project has not been yet developed the conclusions remain in the theoretical dimension and therefore, it can be consider more a desiderata than conclusions. Anyway, the idea of working as a team in the scholar environment from different points of views seems very stimulating. In reference to the activities that already have been tried in the workshop at the University it can be consider that, with the needed adaptation, are validated and ratify. Besides this, part of these ideas have been presented as a workshop in the congress of children literature in the present year The Child and the Book (Athens, April 2014) with a very good reception and some advices that we will try to implement in or work as a group. Further more, we must say that the web site is under construction yet as a part of an innovating program granted by the University of Valencia. In our opinion, there is a lack of resources to work in the classroom in the disciplinary way. Therefore, it seems a must the creation of experimental didactic materials to be validated in a real classroom, making possible a kind of action research to develop this issue. REFERENCES [1] Botella Nicolás, A. M., Fernández Maximiano, R., & Mínguez López, X. (2012). INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN ARTS EDUCATION: A WORK PROPOSAL. ICERI 2012 Proceedings, [2] Martínez Gallego, S., Botella Nicolás, A. M., & Fernández Maximiano, R. (2014). Formación artística en el grado de maestro de primaria de la Universitat de València. Enfoques y propuestas. DEDiCA. Revista de educaçao e humanidades, 2014, (6), [3] Fernández Maximiano, R. (2013). Aproximación al concepto de doble audiencia en la música de los largometrajes de Disney: Cinderella. (Master), Universitat de València, València. Retrieved from [4] Reiniger, L. (Writer). (1922). Aschenputtel Berlin: Institut für Kulturforschung, Berlin. [5] Retrieved