Melody Freed
Arts Scholar
Pentathlon
Semester 1
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my first semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
Click on photos to enlarge the gallery.
Pentathlon 1: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On Film Showing
Event Logistics September 9, 2022; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; NextNow Fest
Pentathlon category #Film
Last Friday, I was able to attend a few events at NextNow Fest, hosted by the Clarice, and one of these events was a film showing of the movie Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. I had heard of this movie before, as it only came out a few months ago, but I really had no idea what it was about or what I was going to see; I came away from this movie with my heart broken and warmed at the same time. Filmed in the style of a documentary, this movie chronicles the tales of Marcel the Shell, a tiny shell living in the corners of an AirBnB. Filmmaker Dean discovers him while staying there, and begins to post videos of Marcel and his grandmother online, which garner millions of views and help Marcel rise to popularity. But what Marcel really wants is to find his family, and with the help of the internet, that is what he intends to do.
After watching this movie, it immediately rose to the top of my list of favorites. Marcel is such a lovable character, and as a viewer you can’t help but root for him while he and Dean try to find his family. His story is emotional and hilarious, and the writing had me crying and laughing at the same time. The film style and animation was incredible; Marcel and his grandmother are a combination of stop motion and animation, while the surrounding environment is the real world. Filmmaking has always been an interest of mine, and I think the way that this movie was filmed was genius. It is such a creative and deep story, and only adds to my respect for the creators and writers. I came away from this experience with a renewed appreciation for filmmaking and animation, as well as an incredible movie that I will definitely recommend to my friends and family.
Pentathlon 2: Twenty One Pilots Concert
Event Logistics September 3, 2022; Capital One Arena in Washington, DC
Pentathlon category #Music
I have always loved concerts; the atmosphere is like nothing else, with all of the people in the room connected and present because of their love for an artist and the music. In Arts Scholars, the impact of the arts is something that we always focus on; personally, I believe that live music has to be one of the most impactful forms of art that exists currently. Twenty One Pilots, in particular, are one of my favorite artists to see live for this reason: the connection between the band and the fans at shows is really one of a kind.
This was not my first time seeing Twenty One Pilots (it was actually my seventh!) but it was my first time experiencing one of their shows in the general admission section, also called the pit. Typically I have stayed away from the pit at concerts because it has always struck me as a bit dangerous, but Twenty One Pilots fans are different. Everyone gets to know each other, either through social media or due to standing in line for the show all day, and everyone looks out for one another and cares about the wellbeing of everyone in the pit around them. The band’s security, as well, makes sure to communicate with fans and get their needs communicated to the venue, so that everyone is safe and can have a fun time. You can tell, just by being there, that each show is so meaningful to the band, the crew, and the audience. Along with this, the amount of interaction between the band and the audience does not compare to any other concert that I’ve been to; Tyler Joseph, the lead singer, makes sure to include and point out everyone in the audience, even those all the way up in the nosebleed section. The experience, overall, is so inspiring; being able to connect to other people through their music is always one of my favorite parts about seeing them live, and this time was certainly no exception.
Pentathlon 3: Rockin' Pets Craft & Chat
Event Logistics October 13, 2022; Bel Air Hall; Arts Scholars Craft & Chat
Pentathlon category #VisualArt #ArtsScholars
As a bit of an introduction to the fall season, or perhaps to get into the fall spirit, the Craft & Chat event held this week involved making a pet rock! It was hosted by Charlotte, one of our TA’s, and a lot of us showed up to create a pet that we can actually keep in our dorms. This event was very fun, and gave me an opportunity to interact with and get to know some of the other people in Arts Scholars, beyond the few that I have been able to connect with so far. Through this event, I learned that I have a crafty side to me, which I was not aware of until this event! I really enjoyed coming up with a design for the box and creating Greg the Rock himself. His theming was inspired by the Cartoon Network show Over the Garden Wall, which is one of my personal favorite shows and a great one to watch around Halloween.
This event connected to Arts Scholars by introducing me to yet another mode of art and creation, as well as the sense of community that Arts Scholars promote through meetings like this. I suppose I had also never considered personifying a rock to be a form of art, but seeing the creativity and thought that went into the projects of the people around me was incredibly insightful in this regard! There were a lot of neat rocks that others created, all with their own backgrounds and stories. I love being able to share creativity like this with others, and these events, specific to Arts Scholars, really emphasize the importance of this.
Pentathlon 4: Arts Advisory Board's Pumpkin Function
Event Logistics October 20, 2022; Bel Air Hall; Arts Scholars Event
Pentathlon category #VisualArt #Presentation #ArtsScholars
With Halloween right around the corner, the Arts Advisory Board hosted an event called Pumpkin Function, where we were able to go and decorate our own pumpkins! Along with this, they had a Halloween trivia Kahoot! that was a fun addition to the evening. Painting and using the materials provided was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone, but working with the paint and being able to bounce ideas off of the people working around me was very beneficial. I learned from this event that I really enjoy activities like this when I am able to work around other people, as I love being able to see the art that everyone else has created!
In connection with the Arts Scholars program, this event was hosted by the AAB, and it was the first event by them that I was able to attend. It was nice getting to meet all of the AAB members who were hosting and to celebrate the spooky season. It showed me once again that art does not have a singular definition; painting a pumpkin can definitely be considered as another form of expression through art, one that I had not really considered prior to this event!
Pentathlon 5: As You Like It Performance
Event Logistics November 12, 2022; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; play
Pentathlon category #Theater
A few weeks ago I was able to catch a Saturday evening performance of As You Like It, put on by the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Kogod Theatre in the Clarice. The play was written by Shakespeare, and is about a girl named Rosalind, along with her cousin, who escape from home into the forest and both fall in love. Disguised as a boy, Rosalind convinces Orlando to pretend that she is in fact Rosalind, and act with her as he would with his love. The cast was fantastic, and included some Arts Scholars alum, including Katie Rees, who is a friend of mine!
I love storytelling and theatre, but I have always found Shakespeare a bit hard to understand. It is typically difficult to follow due to the language being used, but that was not an issue with this play! The story was easy to follow along with, as a result of great adaptation and fantastic acting. I learned that this is a Shakespeare play that I really enjoy, and seeing some of the historical aspects, including a fighting event that occurred near the beginning, that he incorporated into the story that are significant to the time period that it was written was fascinating to me as a history major!
Pentathlon
Semester 2
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my second semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
Click on photos to enlarge the gallery.
Pentathlon 1: Fearless New Play Festival
Event Logistics February 11, 2023; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; Fearless New Play Festival
Pentathlon category #Theatre
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go to the third and final evening of the Fearless New Play Festival in the Clarice, which was a showcase of new, short plays written by UMD students with a chance for the playwright to get feedback from the audience. I thought all of the plays were incredibly well written, and all of the actors, although not in costume or on a set, put as much effort into their acting as they would had they been on a stage. There was also an opportunity after each performance for the audience to call out the themes or any lines that they found the most significant in each performance, and it was super interesting to hear the different perspectives from across the audience.
Playwriting requires a lot of skill, and all of the dialogue between the characters in each play felt so natural. The first play was the only one that stood out as a bit different in terms of dialogue, with overlapping lines and intense back and forth between the characters. The rest of the performances read as typical everyday conversations, and making those conversations sound natural is especially important in acting. In connection to my major, it was interesting to watch these performances because each one felt so human. They were, for the most part, written without any inspiration from a specific person, but every character felt like they could be real, ordinary people doing real, relatively uncommon things, or having very human conversations. With history, it can be much of the same; each person in history was just that, a person. They were living their lives as they thought they should, living through human experiences and making human mistakes. It was strange to find a piece of myself in many of the characters in the plays, but that is what makes them so impactful.
Pentathlon 2: Dean's Lecture with Dionne Warwick
Event Logistics February 22, 2023; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; ARHU Dean's Lecture Series
Pentathlon category #Presentation
This event was very much a once in a lifetime experience, and I am so incredibly grateful that I got to witness it. Ms. Dionne Warwick carries herself with such grace and is such an effortlessly good storyteller, and for every question she tried to give as detailed of an answer as she could. She went into depth about her life and her career, including her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and her friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr. As a history major who’s favorite topic to study is the turmoil of the 1960s, it’s not often you get to hear stories from someone who was actually there to witness it, so to be there was just an incredible opportunity.
Ms. Warwick is a strong encourager of the arts, but she said throughout the lecture that she does not give advice. She thinks it is better for people to be true to themselves and to do what they think is right rather than relying on the words of someone else. I think this is similar in some ways to what we do in Arts Scholars, as everyone’s relationship with the arts is different yet significant to their own lives. It can be difficult receiving or even giving advice within an artistic medium, as many are exploring it at their own pace and applying it where they need to in their own lives. She did give one piece of advice, which she mentioned that she learned from her grandfather: “say what you want, but always end it with a smile.”
Pentathlon 3: The Book Club Play
Event Logistics February 24, 2023; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; Arts Scholars Craft & Chat
Pentathlon category #Theatre #ArtsScholars
I had the opportunity to see the opening night of The Book Club Play, put on by the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Kay Theatre in the Clarice, as part of a Craft & Chat hosted by our TA Jenna. The play was incredibly well done, and I left with sore cheeks because of how much I’d laughed. Every character was unique and funny, and memorable in their own specific ways. Many of the members of the cast were Arts Scholars alum as well, and it was so cool to see more of the different paths that can be taken after Scholars in action.
The premise of the play was about a book club who’s meetings are being filmed for a documentary, and with each day the members’ true feelings about each other are revealed. They read many historically significant books, such as Moby Dick, and hearing the perspectives of the different characters on what they were reading really added to their respective personalities. The story of the play was so creative to me, combining two creative mediums, writing and filmmaking, into one central story. It can serve to demonstrate how different mediums within the arts can have effects on each other, and how they can work together to create an unexpected or interesting outcome.
Pentathlon 4: The Wallace Collection
Event Logistics March 21, 2023; Marylebone, London, UK; Study Abroad Trip
Pentathlon category #VisualArt
Over spring break, I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a study abroad history class in London! Over the course of a week, we explored a tremendous amount of the city (most of it on foot…) and learned a lot about the British Empire and aspects of it that still relate to everyday life in the UK. On our fourth day, we had the chance to visit the Wallace Collection, which is an art collection by Sir Richard and Lady Wallace, housed in what used to be their home. The majority of the collection is art, but much of it also features other mediums of art, including wood carving, sketches, pottery, printing, and crafted furniture. It was a gorgeous place, and no room was identical, with each filled to the brim with paintings and furniture from the period, each collected and placed with such care, outlined with vibrant wallpapers in various colors. There were even some Rembrandt paintings on display, only further highlighting the importance and wealth of the collectors.
In a similar manner to Arts Scholars, the collection houses many mediums of art, rather than just one specific one. This collection allowed me to study and ask questions about these other art forms, just as we are able to do in the Arts program, as every person has a different background with art and a different medium that they prefer. The gallery also gave me insight into art history, which I had previously not been able to study. As a history major, this gallery and this trip were phenomenal experiences for me, as they really opened my mind to different forms of art and the amount of detail and story that can be told from even the simplest of pieces.
Here is a link to the gallery's website, for further exploration.
Pentathlon 5: Don Giovanni Opera
Event Logistics April 21, 2023; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; UMD Opera Studio
Pentathlon category #Music
For my first ever opera experience, I was able to attend a performance of Don Giovanni, an opera by Mozart, presented by the University of Maryland Opera Studio at the Clarice. It follows a man named Don Giovanni who has a problem with leading girls on and using them and then running away, but his past catches up to him in the form of Donna Elvira and Donna Anna, as well as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s soon-to-be husband who is investigating Don Giovanni for the murder of Donna Anna’s father. Don Giovanni’s ‘side-kick,’ if you will, is named Leporello, and he is doing everything he can to get away from Don Giovanni but is failing every time.
Opera is a form of art that I have never experienced before, and the performance was very action-packed for my first ever one. It is yet another example of a medium of art that is unique in many ways. Opera combines storytelling, singing, and acting all into one, and each performer was skilled in all of these. Along with this, the entire show was in a different language (I believe Italian?), which takes incredible skill to learn and act without really knowing what is being said if you are not fluent in that language. The combination of artistic mediums that opera utilizes are similar to how they are utilized in Arts Scholars, as every person in Arts Scholars is coming from a different background and presenting a different medium that others can work alongside. As a history major, as well, this performance was fascinating for me because of the time period that it was set; and as someone who almost went into music performance, the live orchestra was very engaging to listen to and only added to the incredible performance.
