Greetings friends!
Well, we have made it to the end of 2020 and here's wishing you a healthy, uplifted, hugely prosperous and a very connected 2021.
I know that for us as entertainers, it has been a big challenge staying relevant in this time of isolation and lockdown - all of what we do is based on being together in the same place, traveling and sharing what we do with communities all over the USA! I can imagine that you are also having your own unique challenges!
It has been awfully strange laying my head in the same place every night after so many years of a new place every night. Although the respite has been welcome and the consistency new and enjoyed...I do feel the road calling to me and hope that I will see you on a stage very soon!
Updates from the campus
Did you catch our Christmas show?!
It was a lot of fun putting it together and a lot more in depth than we were thinking! We hope you had a chance to watch it and that it brought some fun to your holidays.
In correlation with shooting our Virtual Christmas show we did a photo shoot as well as a virtual performance for the New Mexico Music Hall of Fame awards and a video shoot for our virtual Artreach.
The update I am most excited to share with you is (drum roll please...) We have created a Masters Educational Series for Educators!! It is a 5 Episode Series focusing on master artists and art forms! It has taken our entire team of artists to put it together - from creating and performing the music, the set, the costumes, the images, down to the editing and researching... wow! It's been a process and something that is quite new to us but we are really excited about our final product which will be hosted on our new non-profit website! (we'll keep you posted on how that is coming along!)
Here's a sneak peek at our set and paintings for our Frida Kahlo episode!
ARTIST OF THE MONTH - Vincent Van Gogh
I have spent the last few weeks looking at Van Gogh paintings and reading about his life, trying to gain a deeper understanding of who he was as a person and what was the inspiration behind his art work.
To me he seemed like a young man who really felt things deeply. He had a great love for his younger brother Theo, who he wrote over 800 letters to over the course of his lifetime. zone of my favourite paintings of Van Gogh's is "Starry Night over
the Rhone" - I can almost feel the crisp air and the smell of the water. This was the first Starry Night painting that Van Gogh did. He used a technique on his paintings that was quite unique to him. He would actually apply the paint to the canvas directly from the tube or with a palette knife which gave the painting a 3D look to it. Check out this link from the MOMA that let's you dive right into the painting of Starry Night and see the actual brush strokes! *chills*
I also simply adore the "Bedroom in Arles" because I can get a sense of being in that room. I love the colours he chose too. He was certainly a fan of yellow. Some say it was his favourite colour... (please excuse the Canadian spelling!! I haven't quite kicked that habit!) but perhaps that was because of vision problems. Historians believe that Van Gogh may have had glaucoma, epilepsy, lead poisoning and he drank a lot of absinthe which may have caused him to see more yellows and to see halos around objects, much like we see in his painting of Starry Night.
All images - Public Domain - Wikimedia Commons
Creative Things to Do
This months activities!
Over Christmas and New Year's I'm sure we all spent a lot of time on ZOOM with our families and loved ones... it got me thinking... (I guess, once an Artrageous Troupe member, always an Artrageous Troupe member!) how can I make this INTERACTIVE!?
With my family, my mom, dad and 4 sisters (!!) and each one of those sisters has a gaggle of kiddos, it can be tricky to get a word in, so being the ever practical Capricorn I created a list of activities we could do that was fun and engaging and everyone got to give their answers! We only got to one of the activities (because - mom, dad, 4 sisters, gaggle of kiddos - need I say more?) but it was really fun and inclusive.
I thought I'd share some of my online ZOOM activities with you and hopefully they will come in handy!
Activity 1
Who is most likely to...
(adapt the questions to suit your fam!)
Have one moderator who asks the questions and each person writes down their answer on a pad. You only have a few seconds to write down your answer and then everyone shows their answers all at once. The person with the most votes wins!
Here are some sample Who is most likely to ... questions
Who is mostly likely to win a grammy?
Who is most likely to run off and join the circus?
Who is most likely to have weird piercings?
Who is most likely to have the worst phobias?
Who is most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse?
Who is most likely to embarrass themselves with their first impression?
Who is most likely to cry at a romance movie?
Who is most likely to have the craziest story to tell at Thanksgiving?
Who is most likely to travel the world?
Who is most likely to be accepted into the Secret Service?
Activity 2
Charades
Choose the first actor (youngest, cutest, next birthday...) Same rules apply as with in person charades -
No speaking.
Indicate book, movie, song, tv show.
Indicate number of words.
Use common indications for:
short word
plural
syllable
on the nose
sounds like
Here are some sample Charades for you to use:
MOVIES
Freaky Friday
Mean Girls
10 Things I Hate About You
Kung Fu Panda
Mary Poppins
The Golden Compass
Night at the Museum
Finding Nemo
The King's Speech
In the Line of Fire
BOOKS
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
A Tale of Two Cities
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Pillars of the Earth
Cat in the Hat
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Handmaid's Tale
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Hunger Games
The Hobbit
Activity 3
20 Questions
It's as simple as it sounds:
One person gets to pick an object from the follow categories:
Animal
Vegetable
Mineral
All the other players get 20 Question to figure out what the mystery object is!
20 QUESTION IDEAS
Sloth
Porcupine
Octopus
Popcorn
Stop sign
Leg warmers
Palm tree
Pluto
Sled
Asparagus
Pineapple
Hockey Stick
All of our Tour Dates have been updated!
Click above to see where you can catch Artrageous at a theatre near you!!
