the teaching of art as a performance

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National Art Education Association The Teaching of Art as a Performance Author(s): George Szekely Source: Art Education, Vol. 43, No. 3 (May, 1990), pp. 6-17 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193220 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 05:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 05:53:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Teaching of Art as a Performance

National Art Education Association

The Teaching of Art as a PerformanceAuthor(s): George SzekelySource: Art Education, Vol. 43, No. 3 (May, 1990), pp. 6-17Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193220 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 05:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

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Page 2: The Teaching of Art as a Performance

The Teaching of Art as a Performance

"You should see the incredible earrings my teacher wears and makes for herself out of found objects." "That's nothing. My teacher is like a canvas. She paints her face, puts on disguises and unveils her painted cape."

"Our teacher is a great dancer.She creates all kinds of performances." "You should see our art teacher. He climbs on the tables, walks over chairs and once, even became 'invisible' and he 'walked' over air."

"Our teacher notices everything. If I come in with a new snow boot or a kid has a

colorful glove, he gets very excited."

"Our art teacher is always bringing interest- ing stuff to school. There is always some- thing special in his pockets." "Well, our class is like a museum. Our teacher must have little left in his own studio."

"Our art teacher takes my ideas seriously. When I make something out of paper clips, he calls it the 'crown jewel'. When I build with dominoes, he even calls my work great 'architecture.'" "That's nothing. Our teacher writes down great ideas we invent and talks about them at his convention."

Comments of students participating in our Play- Discovery Art Program(s).

During a recent visit to the California side of our family we had not seen in many years, my wife, children, and I were taken to a wonderful Thai restaurant. As we awaited our meal, I was fascinated by the bright napkins neatly folded into two triangular segments on the table. I bent the napkin halves into perfect duckbills, which I tried on with accompanying sound effects. Not realizing that my wife was anxious to make a good impression, the children at the table responded with delight, joining in the play suggestion as they made their napkins into hats and ears, and tried them out as soft telephones.

To paraphrase Newton's law: For every play action, there is an equal play reaction. The teachers ability to demonstrate play- fulness in class is a demonstration of creativity that draws out the creativity of other players. While art teachers cannot regularly paint or sculpt in front of their classes each day, they can perform

playfully their art-teaching tasks.

Performance Performances are special: performers

bring props with them, dress up to fit the occasion, and consider visual things (e.g. colors, lighting, and backgrounds). In a performance, there are surprises unlike ex- pectations of most other school activities and timing is important. Performers chal- lenge audiences to see, and to think creatively. They invite participation without assigning or forcing it. Even teaching involves performance, but most teachers think very little of performance qualities and don't view themselves as performers. Art teachers, for example, seldom visualize lessons or their consequences, considering what their teaching would look like, sound like, or feel like. But art is visual, and communicating an art lesson is a creative act - an artwork that needs to be pre- sented as an exciting visual performance.

6 Art EducatiornMay 1990

George Szekely

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Page 5: The Teaching of Art as a Performance

What Performers Can Do in Class What do you do in class? I play, I

pretend, I make art. I also show, display, and package, as well as take fantasy trips, make up stories, try on things, play house, and design visual experiments. I frequently hide things, prepare unusual settings, create exciting entrances and often rear- range the room. Art teaching as a creative performance requires an active, playful designer of the environment and of all the objects and performers in it. So as an active performer, I think up performances for myself that will interest and involve others. These performances are funfilled, playful roles that demonstrate the creative act, allowing students to see the art teacher in the act of being playful and creative. In my role, I can become anyone or anything and take imaginary trips anywhere at anytime.

On a colorful piece of carpet, for in- stance, I take the class on a "magic carpet" ride.With a remote-control device in hand, I move the arms, and determine the ac- tions, of class members. I involve students in major decisions such as asking them which necktie I should wear, by having them select what would be the "most-with- it" look for me. I try out a space capsule made of chairs arranged on the floor. I prepare an unusual experiment of rows of linked students controlling and drawing with a single pencil held at the end of the line. I set up tents - umbrella cities - and arrange Star Wars figures or groupings of Barbie dolls. I always have a pocketful of magic: unusual keys to secret places, fine rocks, or imaginary treasures. I blow bubbles, build dreams with magic sand or slime, and play in the dark with Day-Glo strings and blocks. I will try on anything - from a new nose to a pair of three-dimen- sional glasses or an unusual crown. In the theater, it is impressive to see a live camel on stage, but more incredible things can happen in art rooms and in art perform- ances.

Live Art Three hundred apparently glued-

together "Barbies" seem to be lifting a large shipping crate. We are witnessing an environmental artist directing volunteers in an art performance: the assembling of an artwork on our campus lawn. Each day, the artist receives a large, interested audience who - in individual ways - interpret what they see. As witnesses to such an art event, art students - and others - tend to inquire about the appropriateness of materials and otherwise demonstrate pervasive curiosity about the subject, as well as question what art is.

Many contemporary artists have be- come live performers, choosing to maintain direct contact with audiences - working before and with each audience For ex- ample, Claes Oldenburg, the great sculp- tor, required a store not only to exhibit his sculptural food objects but also to perform their creation. Art teachers need equally exciting collections, displays, and settings to enliven both objects and performances. Contemporary art offers a vast variety of clues to art-teaching performances. Among these are the use of giant canvases and three-dimensional art stages, as well as the composition of artists passing in museums as live artworks. Also, "sculp- tures" have walked off their bases; "paint- ings" have moved off walls to invade audi- ence spaces; and artists have entered gal- leries to either create art on the spot or to collaboratively perform with dancers and musicians. Beyond this, before lines dance on paper, they dance in space - visible through the performers gestures and movements. Even a painting or photograph is made through moves and dances as ar- rangements, changes and chances all become visible acts. Essentially, then, all art making involves performance.

The art-teaching performance I practice relates to other performance and ceremo- nial arts in which artists perform for and with audiences by involving everyone in a

Art Education/May 1990 9

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creative act. These performances use real objects, actual spaces, and movement designs to elicit a variety of artistic re- sponses and media interpretations. My performances with toys and classroom furnishings help to expand art categories while stimulating search for art every- where.

For my students, there is a great fasci- nation with visiting an artist's studio and observing not only the setting but also the artist at work. An important clue to the art process becomes evident as students "listen to" artists speak through what they do best: make art. Jackson Pollock danc- ing over a canvas, De Kooning shifting lines and shapes speak of the art process even without revealing the resulting works. It is such moves, gestures, arrangements of objects, and alterations of space that art teachers can perform in class. And in every classroom, there is an artist-teacher who can speak to students through creative classroom performances - observing, collecting, arranging, displaying, assem- bling, inventing, and risking. In this way, sharing creative experiences with students becomes an important teaching act, while art teaching becomes art making.

Seeking New Roles Why can't the art room be a work of

art? - beautiful and filled with interesting things to look at? Why don't art teachers play in their classes? When a magician or clown visits a school, students' responses come magically alive. Why should re- sponses to art lessons be less fun or exciting? Why should creative bodies engaged in playful movements be viewed as distractions or discipline problems? Why are children's ideas and fantasies more alive when playing with a favorite toy than when responding to an art lesson? Art- teaching scripts need to be expressive of a creative player engaged in many different roles.

In the search for creative experiences,

the art teacher becomes a multimedia designer of performances that involve everyone. As the art room is perceived as a stage, every surface can be viewed as a place to display or arrange objects. Such performance elements as the design of lighting, the staging of entrances, or the selection of costumes are considered. Through the art teachers performance as a magician, for example - new objects, unusual fabrics, or extraordinary processes can be introduced. Among the art teachers luggage may be a makeup bag, a suitcase of costumes, or a box of masks. For each lesson, the artist-teacher prepares a visual setting that includes interesting actions: plays, pantomine, dances, and gestures that breathe life into still bodies and ordinary classrooms. Lectures become passe'. Instead, treasure hunts, juggling, and make believe ice- skating - led by the teacher - elicit visual awareness that can inspire playful movements and ideas by students. The teaching task, then, must focus on design- ing art performances and staging art ideas in terms of playful presentations.

Performances Demonstrate Playfulness An art teacher wearing bright red shoes

steps on a chair and with outspread arms leaps to another chair. As the pilot of a low- flying plane with appropriate (personally produced) sound effects, he/she folds and tears colored shapes of paper, then dispenses them out of the plane. The class observes these "land forms," as each new development is broadcast over the plane's intercom and the pilot requests special assistance to complete his mission of sculpting from the air.

The teacher in the above experiment demonstrates not only the lesson's theme but also that playing is fun - and permit- ted. This teachers creative actions ac- quired visibility through a performance that inspired and licenses creative playing for others. Play is simply live art making

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before a class and can - as in the ex- ample - include playful hand and body movements, sound effects, and playful instructions to invite participation. School audiences love to play, and thus respond joyfully, but many teachers haven't gotten the word yet.

A swimming team fan all my life, I am convinced that many swim coaches don't swim. They appear fully dressed and discuss swimming by the poolside. In observing art teachers each day, it often appears that art teachers don't make art. Rather, they seem to rarely do more than talk about art. However, to demonstrate that the art room is a playful and exciting place to be, the art teacher needs to be a visible player, moving and behaving

playfully. With many restrictions on playing in the schools, art teachers have to pro- mote playfulness through their perform- ances since students believe that playing is not what mature people do.

Being a player in school is courageous for both teachers and students. For teach- ers, play may feel risky because it is not considered adult or professional and can destroy a typically stern teacher's front. And although kids love to make faces, create ususual sound effects, or perform exciting creative dances, these acts are not considered part of art (creative behavior) and so are expected to be left behind on entering school: Play props - balls, bubbles, or Slinkys - are not allowed in school, and therefore become contraband

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subject to confiscation. In art class, though, toys and playful actions should be wel- comed through the teacher's performance. But first we need to recognize some of the initial barriers and suspicions creative performing faces when viewed against a school backdrop.

A gifted singer in a school class renders a few bars of "La Bamba" in serenading his classmates. The teacher complains, and students make fun of the entertainer because no one feels comfortable with students acting differently. So the enter- tainer decides: "I will never sing for the class again." And one more student becomes like everybody else. As schools thus enforce sameness, students become comfortable and secure with the great pressures towards conformity. A teacher's imaginative performances, on the other

hand, break down great barriers for playing and performing in class. A creative per- formance demonstrates exciting move- ments and inventive actions. At the same time, it celebrates playfulness in a way more convincing than verbally suggesting it.

Aspects of a Teaching Performance The art room is a canvas for a teacher's

actions and a playground for the art- teaching performance. Art is most influen- tially taught through oneself. It is a demon- stration of interest in all that is visual, as nothing goes unnoticed in the classroom: a new pencil box, an unusual light outside the classroom window, or raindrops clinging to a student's shiny umbrella are pointed to and discovered before the class. All kinds of forms are played with. Any object is open to examination - showing that things can and should be touched. The unusual and what others miss are noticed in the art class. The beauty of a cracked tile, peeling paint, or frost-filled windows are carefully examined. Objects are collected, views shared, and special qualities admired. Things are tried on, tried in relationships as ideas, and impro- vised during demonstrations.

The teacher shows his toy collection and plays with it on the floor. Students share their prizes from cereal boxes and bubble gum machines. A student may work on a setup of Star Wars figures. For all this sharing, the art room provides a safe shelter - protection for shared treasures and collections, which are the raw materi- als of children's interests and art. The art teacher, meanwhile, demonstrates an openness to look at all kinds of things with a special visual eye and with respect for student's choices. Among these choices are "new" gadgets, toys, and collectibles of the future. Unusual erasers or stickers, for example, are worth sharing in our art class while adults outside consider them junk. New buttons, hairbands, or swatches of

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other favorite things, are all part of the student's visual concerns: fashion and the design of personal spaces from lunch boxes to lockers. The kid's world with its suggestions for art can become part of the teacher's performance displays.

Performances inspire visualizations and pose creative questions: "What will happen if I drop this, bounce this, or soak this?" Unusual suggestions, funny challenges, interesting experiments all promote crea- tive observations in the teacher's perform- ance. A constant curiosity becomes contagious in class. "What happens if?" "I wonder what would happen?"

Every aspect of art teaching can be considered as having performance poten- tial as we can see from the following:

Unpacking-performances - Unpack- ing performances involve the unpacking, unwrapping, or unrolling of objects and packages. They may involve the opening of suitcases; the unloading of shopping bags or shopping carts; or the unwrapping of packages or presents, which are magi- cally demonstrated, imaginatively wrapped, and surprisingly sequenced.

Entrance plays - Entrance plays are designs for the opening of a space and for ceremonies for the teacher and students entering the room. Entrances can pose a mystery, or challenge, through its visual, audio, and tactile qualities such as lighting, sound, or special barriers. Playful entrance schemes can involve changes in experi- ence to contrast the outside and inside of the art room.

Role plays - The teacher enters the room assuming any role, from that of a clown, juggler, or magician to that of a scientist. Disguises, costumes, and make- up can underscore these playful roles.

Pantomime - The teacher's move- ments and gestures can design and demonstrate playful images, stories, and ideas.

Show-and-Tell - Show-and-tell introduces beautiful objects - or new or

unusual forms - through a pretend store display, flea market, or class museum, using the presentation or collection to inspire creative playing.

Treasure hunt and the search to discover - Digging up or uncovering secret treasures or surprises in a pocket, under the earth, or in unusual places inspires students to look for materials, supplies, and objects.

It's a show! - Designing the art lesson as a show, creatively imitating light shows, fashion shows, parades, or parties of all kinds, creates a special event and solicits participants' playfulness. As a show, a class presentation becomes something beautiful to enter into and exciting to take part in.

Ultimately, then, performers play with everything and license unique playful qualities in students responding to their environment.

Students as Performers Out in the school yard, Willy is perform-

ing what looks like a magnificent contem- porary dance in pantomime. With a sheet of paper in hand, Willy leaps into the air, tests the wind, and glides as if teaching the white paper to fly. He spots an imaginary enemy, dives low, bows, spins, and breaks on one foot to zigzag away from his pursuers by imitating bullets and missiles. With simple props, Willy is creating dances, unusual sound effects, and inventive monologues. Such dances and performances from outside can be wel- comed into the art class. We can offer the art room as a stage to perfomers who are allowed to touch, move, rearrange, and play with forms and spaces they vividly imagine. Performing is a means of taking on art roles, discovering art, and creating exciting impressions and marks on all surfaces. Student performers transform ideas and themselves freely to become someone - or something - else, or to be anywhere.

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Through home plays we recognize that children's creativity in art and in play per- formances are intertwined. Dressing up, creating shows before a mirror, improvis- ing rock concerts, or imitating others are creative performances that relate to, and can be extended in, art. Older kids enjoy performing, even if their actions appear more controlled and passive as they "remote control" their world - leaving performing to television stars and others (e.g., teachers). School artists' roles are often passive: sitting and listening to instructions, or observing and recording objects and life somewhere "out there." But through performances in our art class, we return to the notion of feeling art, or exploring ideas through our bodies and actions. We become the artwork before it leaves our bodies as images on paper. Other performance areas offer guidance, too: stand-up comedy; sports; modeling; cheerleading; or playground activities, from jumping rope to playing Twister. Each student performance suggests new move- ments, patterns, rhythms, and forms to be tested in artworks, dwelling on how move- ments feel and look as they are performed on a variety of surfaces. Drawings, trac- ings, videotapes, wrappings, or shadows can record these suggestions as art - which, initiated through a performance, is typically alive, playful, and exciting.

Performances are merely teacher- student encounters when both are at their playful best. For instance, I bring to class a bag of noses and try on a variety of rubber noses to wear. As I display my collection, a student in the audience is already drawing caricature noses on sticky Post-its and trying them on. The spotlight captures these playful responses as one perform- ance inspires another. Performing and playing in the art class soon becomes a dialogue as one player feels free to play in front of another. When I perform with a teddy bear or Legos in hand, visible relief and excitement appear on my audience's

faces in seeing a fellow player. Perform- ances cannot exist without an audience.

As students begin to take over perform- ing roles initiated by the teacher, the teacher needs to exchange the role of performers to that of a supportive audi- ence. "Will you color with me?" is a ques- tion often asked by young children. The child really wants to color before a sympa- thetic audience and to share the experi- ence. A willingness to play with children at home is, of course, a sign of caring. Teachers who are willing to put makeup on and perform with funny noses are not only demonstrating a willingness to play with students but also to share interests. "Daddy, look at me!" - or "You're not watching!" are words that accompany a young child's new adventures. Great play occurs before interested audiences whose major roles include serious listening, observing, questioning, and playful responding.The artist and the child work hard to get an audience's attention. Chil- dren's performances are for special people -moms, dads, teachers, and friends - even as the kids get older and these special persons are not directly named. The appreciation, enthusiasm, and empathy provided for a student perform- ance and play are essential for continu- ation.

Performance Elements If teaching is considered a speech, then

visual qualities, voice, gestures, and staging of a presentation are not a factor. But if we view art teaching as a perform- ance, we must visualize it and think of its performance qualities: how it looks, feels, or sounds to an audience. Hand moves, body gestures, and facial expressions make up part of the performer-artist's palette. And when an art lesson is a performance, we can dress for it: a chef's hat, a surgical mask, a badge, or swim goggles communicate a role and encour- age involvement. A teacher emerging from

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from circus juggling or trapeze acts allow rhythmic movements with tools and techniques in relating the show to art. Communtication in art teaching is most direct when relayed from body to bodies, the teacher's "moving performances" invite others to move.

Years ago, I wore fashionable shoes to teach; now I wear Reeboks. My playful feet twist, jump, or improvise long shadows on the wall. From free-fitting shoes to the fanciful approaches to space about me, I am able to move, build, rearrange anything in reach. Not only the feet, but also the hands (especially when wearing unusual gloves from my collection), and voice and mouth sounds are all instruments of play. Hands covered with makeup pose as a Picasso sculpture, I feel free to applaud, lie on my back under a table as Michelangelo, or become a silent Egyptian sculpture standing on a chair. Moving through space, actively searching, displaying, pointing, modeling, and trying on things become the range of creative attitudes and rhythms of performance that best exemplifies art making and attracts class artists.

?Vivienne della Grotta 1985

a scarecrow outfit attested to this: "It was hot inside but it was worth it, in getting the children in such a high mood. Through the costume, I really got into the act myself."

Imaginative movements such as clown- ing and play acting animate players and the subject of artworks, as well as the shapes, lines, and rhythms of the art. When we perform a "square dance draw- ing," we create shapes as students move in circles and squares while marking their position on the floor. Distances between students, as well as the shapes in the dance, its revolutions, and rhythms all become part of the performance and appear in the artwork. Moves borrowed

Teacher Talk At a recent dinner party, my five-year-

old daughter was offered chocolate soup by our playful host. As he served her portion of a vegetable soup, Ana replied, "Whipped cream, please." Playful dia- logues lead to fantastic ideas and the general promotion of play. On the other side of the proverbial coin, openness to unusual ideas is signaled through respon- sive, playful language or sillytalk that becomes a creative force in bringing life to unusual ideas.

A lesson introduced by a talking spider (a paper cutout), for example, describes the spider's best drawings of beautiful webs made on the walls of a famous museum. The spider advises students to ,choose the corner of rooms that, for him or her, offer the most challenging drawing

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space. Our spider shares his secret net- drawing tools (pencils on a string), and students are cheered on as they draw for him. Through our guest artist's voice and gestures, the students are offered new drawing techniques, tools, and ideas to explore. Playful introductions suggest plays to discover what drawing is and what art could be.

In a manner of speaking - To create a fantasy or share an exciting image and feeling of a subject takes more than ordering students to act. One teacher notes: "I told my students to draw like an elephant and no one was willing to do it." But what if we really invited the elephant to class and tried teaching him how to draw? What instructions would we have to give? - and what rewards? Could you, the trainer, demonstate the most unusual tricks as you give the world's biggest pencil to your elephant? Try to be careful since the point may break if the elephant uses all his might on the table. Instructions and conver- sations may feel risky, funny, and unusual to strangers, but not to members of an art class. Words become images and are carried like fantasies from one artist (a teacher) to others. This is a fragile trip that depends on belief, conviction, and interest for communication: and an imaginative voice can evoke playfulness and visions of fun. Finally, playing with the elephant, sensing its shifting weight, imitating its funny walk, or even teaching it new tricks will allow participation in a drawing adven- ture that will leave exciting tracks and marks on art papers.

Talk is cheap - One teacher may talk about making masks while another displays and tries on lampshades, mixing bowls, and gift boxes while giving a lively description from behind her headgear. The experience of trying on and discovering masks is illuminated by playful descriptions calling for inventive plays. Would we wear whipped cream? - and how about a jello- mold hat or an eggshell mask? - and who

would be willing to wear it? This promotes a different experience - one of discover- ing masks, rather than mindlessly accept- ing formulas.

All in a word - What is really in a word? Well, one teacher opens her bag and says, "I brought you all this junk to work with." Another teacher, while opening her bright red suitcase announces the dis- covery of famous jewels found by her bus- driver husband and says she will share her treasure with those eager to examine it. Note that the objects in both presentations were the same: a bag and jewels, yet only the imaginative words in the second presentation conjure up exciting images and art possibilities.

Art ideas can be envisioned and shopped for through words. Performances can be introduced through open phrasing using words that have little preconceived baggage. For example, instead of making kites, planes, or mobiles, we can talk about objects that fly, dance or make sounds in the air. Speaking of the wildest, funniest, shiniest, tastiest, or strangest becomes a challenging reference to playful thinkers. Can you make it invisible? Can you picture it so that it gets into the Guinness Book of World Records? Can you think of it in a way that no one can resist looking at it? Playful conversations constantly expand art: "What can art be made with?" "Where can it be found?" "What can be called art?" or "What tools and techniques can be used to make art?" Language challenges us to reach out to new approaches.

Presenting a Forty-Five Minute Performance

Art lessons are generally planned as introductions of what to say and do during the opening minutes of a class. However, a performance has to unfold throughout the class period; be visualized as exciting, beautiful, or surprising events that use the room's space and objects; and sequence teachers actions and student's responses

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in an evolving series of events. When I recently brought Bobo the

mysterious monster to class, he was packed in a strongbox fastened by a heavy chain and large padlock. Parked in the doorway, this strange object forced stu- dents to climb over it to enter the room. Throughout the period, the monster mystery gradually unraveled as Bobo's smells and footprints were discovered. Through the mind's eye we visualized the contents of the box. At a choreographed point, sounds emanated from the package; soon, a strong smell permeated the room. And investigators used rubbings to uncover mysterious footprints embedded in the hallway tiles. My performances changed from acting as Bobo's keeper at the start of class to afterward heading the investigation and following clues in solving the puzzle. Later, I became the master of ceremonies for the magical rites initiating Bobo's many likenesses created and modeled by students.

Timing is an essential factor during the teacher's performance in building sus- pense, introducing surprises, and selecting the sequence of showing objects and materials. Each class segment may involve changes in costumes, lighting, and scen- ery. Objects and supplies may be un- wrapped, unravelled, or made to appear magically. Work spaces may change, and art that begins on a table may end up on a magic carpet on the floor or on a ship riser on the stairs. Tidal waves and storms involving lighting and sound effects can waft a student-built structure to a window sill or to the higher ground of a classroom shelf. Creative destructions, group actions, and plays throughout the lesson can alter both work spaces and resulting art works. But what will happen first? What will be seen or experienced next? - and how can the excitement of an event be made to last?

In discussing performance skills, one student-teacher complained that although

she had designed an exciting visual lesson, the children's responses that had started on a high note had diminished slowly during the period. Towards the end, the children moved, worked, and painted as if no significant experience had oc- curred at the start. That student-teacher had yet to learn that the excitement of a performance must unfold through an ongo- ing series of playful actions that only begin at the start of the art lesson.

In Conclusion As a performer, a teacher does not need

either membership in the magician's union or certification as a world-class juggler- only lots of imagination and a hat, a key, a false nose, or other simple props and some sound effects to signal the beginning of a performance. Somethig special can always be hidden in a teachers pocket; all class- room furnishings can be climbed over or climbed aboard; and simple, yet interest- ing, collections and activities can evoke exciting visions as well as creative re- sponses.

George Szekely is Program Faculty Chair and Associate Professor of Art Education at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

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