KATIE QUINN
Arts Scholar
PENTATHALON 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.
MXMTOON AT NEXTNOW FEST AT THE CLARICE
#music on September 9, 2020
I've been a fan of mxmtoon for a while but never had the chance to see her live until NextNow Fest had a Zoom concert earlier this month. I had never thought that performing virtually would be a possibility for musicians. I was sorely mistaken as this was one of the most intimate concerts I've ever attended. Maia (mxmtoon) performed from her bedroom with just a microphone, her ukulele, and laptop and still managed to give a fantastic performance and personal Q&A afterwards. I have great hope for the future of virtual performance and am excited to see what this new method of performance will bring us.
PASS OVER ON BROADWAY/AMAZON PRIME
#theater on October 1, 2020
When it comes to film, Spike Lee has always been an idol to me in this area. I always thought of him as a strictly film man. However, when I saw he directed/filmed a version of the Antoinette Nwandu Broadway play, I was surprised that he had entered the world of theater. While theater is known for in-person audience connection, Lee managed to bring that connection to people's homes and make this story accessible to many more people. This performance gave me a new perspective into the overlapping nature of art forms and how that nature can make great stories/art more accessible to everyone.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS ON NETFLIX
#film on October 25, 2020
With Halloween around the corner, I wanted to get myself in the spirit of the holiday but also find a piece of art that I could draw inspiration from. Silence of the Lambs is a horror classic, but because I'm a scaredy cat most of the time, this was my first time watching it. One thing that really caught my eye in this film was the use of camera angles as a tool for perspective. As shown in the picture to the right, close ups are one of the angles used very often to emphasize the intensity of a scene that has a rather slow pacing to it. Other examples of these kinds of angles include a night vision camera and a slowly spinning camera to take the perspective of the main character looking around the room.
FINNEAS AT FALLAPALOOZA
#music on November 12, 2020
I was super excited to watch FINNEAS in concert. I saw him perform with his sister, Billie Eilish, a while back but wanted to see how he performed as a solo act. Even through technical difficulties, he was able to connect with the audience through the chat and give us insight onto what it's been like as a performer during a pandemic. Being able to attend more virtual events, like this concert, has given me hope for the arts amidst everything that's been going on.
RELAXING WRITING NIGHT WITH AAB
#scholars #literature on November 17, 2020
This was my first time attending an Arts Advisory Board event. At first, I didn't know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised with how relaxed and calm I felt after the event. I'm not much of a writer but it was good to be able to explore writing in a very low pressure environment. I hope to attend more AAB events in the future!
PENTATHALON 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.
"MONKEY BARS" AT CINEMAFEMME FILM FESTIVAL
#film on February 7, 2021
To kick off this semester’s Pentathlon events, I decided to watch the short film “Monkey Bars”. I was made aware of this movie by one of my high school best friends, Sofia Popol (who happens to play the main character Maggie). The film details Maggie’s first experience meeting an older guy she met on Facebook. This coming of age film deals, mainly, with themes of naivety and romanticizing your life. One of the interesting methods the director, Jaqueline Xerri, used was switching between the camera filming the actual movie and the handheld camera the characters were using. In one of the opening scenes, Maggie is seen with her friends just messing around in a grocery store and filming themselves doing so. The cameras switch when they see Pete, the boy from Facebook, in the parking lot. Here we can see a shift in Maggie when she first sees Pete. We see her attraction to him from the get-go, and this is presumably one of the first times she feels this way about someone. The video camera eventually comes back for a bit when we see Maggie passed out after a night of drinking at a playground with Pete and her friends.
This film felt very personal and relatable to me, even though I’ve never snuck out and met someone I was talking with on Facebook. However, I’ve had similar experiences and many people I know have as well. The relatability was heightened for me by seeing someone I’m so close with in the film. I felt myself feeling very protective and extra tense because I didn’t want my friend being hurt. Overall, I really enjoyed this film and hope to see more coming of age films like this in the future.
"MACHINAL" AT THE CLARICE
#theater on February 28, 2021
For my THET223 class, we were assigned to watch UMD’s live Zoom performance of the play, Machinal. Going into it, I had no idea what the play was about except that it was written and is set during the 1920s. During the play, all of the actors were remote, however, the production team made it seem as if they were all performing together. My understanding of how this worked was that they sent all of the actors green screens, costumes, makeup, and lighting equipment to use remotely. Then the production team met together in the Clarice to edit all of the actors' screens to make it appear as if they were actually together. There were even some scenes where they made it appear to the audience as if some of the actors were touching, hugging, etc. I thought this was such a cool thing to try for the performance and it turned out to be pretty realistic (as shown in the photo). Overall, I think the entire cast and crew of the production did a fantastic job on bringing this story to life, especially during a pandemic! I’m excited to see what the production team comes up with in the future and what new technology will be used to advance how we perform and experience theater.
"2 IN 1" EVENT WITH AAB
#artsscholars #music #presentation on February 28, 2021
I always forget how much I enjoy going to Arts Advisory Board events. AAB events always help me to connect with my fellow Arts scholars in super fun ways. It’s been a bit tricky getting to know everyone in my Arts scholars classes and workshops but going to AAB events really helps bridge that gap. In this “2 in 1” event, I got to see a lot of other Arts scholars who I normally wouldn’t see around campus or in Bel Air Hall. I participated in the Song Guessing game and Scribbl.io as well. In the Song Guessing game, we all gave the hosts a song that fit a given prompt. Then the hosts played the song and we all tried to guess who’s song was who’s. It turns out that I am pretty bad at guessing people’s music tastes because I only got 2 of them right. However, this was still a really fun experience and helped me get to know my fellow scholars better. I also participated in a game of Scribbl.io. I turned out to be better at this game than I was at the previous one. This game of virtual Pictionary allowed me to get a glimpse at how other people interpreted certain words and pictures. It also allowed me to see other people’s art styles in the process! Overall, I had a really good time at this event and I hope to get to know more about everyone else in Arts scholars in the future.
"2 IN 1" EVENT WITH AAB
#artsscholars #music #presentation on February 28, 2021
I always forget how much I enjoy going to Arts Advisory Board events. AAB events always help me to connect with my fellow Arts scholars in super fun ways. It’s been a bit tricky getting to know everyone in my Arts scholars classes and workshops but going to AAB events really helps bridge that gap. In this “2 in 1” event, I got to see a lot of other Arts scholars who I normally wouldn’t see around campus or in Bel Air Hall. I participated in the Song Guessing game and Scribbl.io as well. In the Song Guessing game, we all gave the hosts a song that fit a given prompt. Then the hosts played the song and we all tried to guess who’s song was who’s. It turns out that I am pretty bad at guessing people’s music tastes because I only got 2 of them right. However, this was still a really fun experience and helped me get to know my fellow scholars better. I also participated in a game of Scribbl.io. I turned out to be better at this game than I was at the previous one. This game of virtual Pictionary allowed me to get a glimpse at how other people interpreted certain words and pictures. It also allowed me to see other people’s art styles in the process! Overall, I had a really good time at this event and I hope to get to know more about everyone else in Arts scholars in the future.
EXOUSIA WITH THE JIM HENSON AWARD FOR PUPPETRY
#theater on April 23, 2021
I previously had zero experience working with puppets. That is until a colleague of mine, Bill Kassay, reached out in a GroupMe we were both in, asking for people interested in learning about puppetry. He needed some more puppeteers for his Jim Henson Award project, Exousia. The project aimed to comment on the senselessness of war and the effects of violence and war on those involved. During the filming process, I quickly learned about techniques used when puppeteering as well as puppet and prop design. All of the puppets used in his project were sock puppets along with one large puppet/styrofoam head used to play the antagonist, Chuck. We used halved styrofoam balls with iris attachments for the puppets eyes, cardboard inside the puppets to stiffen up the mouths, and materials like feathers, yarn and pipe cleaners for their hair. When learning about different techniques for puppeteering, one tool that really helped me when filming was the monitor we had in front of us that played the camera footage. This way we could see what we were doing since the puppets were above us. Overall, I really loved the filming process and the final product and hope to learn more about puppeteering! You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIgEj1VcsBU (My name is in the credits!)
PENTATHALON SEMESTER 3
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my third semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
"MARYLAND NIGHT LIVE" AT NEXTNOW FEST IN THE CLARICE SMITH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
#presentation on September 17, 2021
Attending Maryland Night Live was, honestly, the perfect way to come back to seeing live performances. I had never seen any performances from MNL in the past (virtual or in person) so it was a completely new experience for me. As you might expect, the performances are based entirely on the format of Saturday Night Live, featuring a Cold Open, a host monologue, musical guests, and lots and lots of sketch comedy. The extent of my knowledge on sketch comedy is very limited with Saturday Night Live as one of my only references. However, I think that this MNL performance was better than any recent SNL show I have seen in a while. This opinion is probably because the humor was geared more towards college students, rather than the writers and performers trying to reach as wide of an audience as possible.
My favorite sketch in the performance was the Harry Styles Wattpad Fanfiction reenactment. This sketch was, quite literally, a reenactment of a fanfiction story written on Wattpad about Harry Styles. While the acting and dialogue was fantastic, the thing that made this sketch the funniest of them all was the fact that so many of us in the audience had actually read fanfiction like the one being acted out. Most of us have specific memories of reading “Insert your name” stories in middle school about our favorite characters and celebrities. The connecting factor of nostalgia and these shared experiences really added the cherry on top of a great performance.
"A BUTOH DOCUMENTARY: KAMAITACHI IN THE SNOW" ON YOUTUBE
#film on October 4, 2021
For this Pentathlon event, I decided to use it as a chance to learn more about the topic of my capstone project: the Japanese dance style, butoh. This documentary detailed the journey of a French butoh dancer, Melvin Coppalle as he traveled to Japan for the first time to learn from a student of Hijikata Tatsumi, the founder of butoh, Saga Kobayashi. From my past research, I’ve found that butoh is a very stylistic and personal art form. This was clarified in this documentary, as Melvin discusses how his style has changed after his performance with Saga saying,
“But, my butoh can’t change really because my butoh is just an extension of myself. If myself is changing, of course my butoh will change. But I can’t just make a workshop with Saga san and say ‘ok now my butoh will be this one’... I have all to learn, I’m just a young dancer. This is just the beginning. I’m a baby”
As someone new to butoh, this was really interesting and important for me to see. Often as artists, we’re inspired by other artists to whom we look up to. We may be so inspired as to start modelling our own work after theirs. However, butoh emphasizes the need for true originality as it focuses specifically on all experiences of life. We are not all derivatives of the same person, but rather individuals with different experiences and emotions than others. These experiences and emotions may be similar in some ways to other’s, but they are all equally unique in their own ways.
"MANDALAS AND PODCASTS" IN BEL AIR LOUNGE
#visualarts #artsscholars on October 13, 2021
This has been the most relaxing Pentathlon event so far. I’ve always enjoyed coloring, as I am sure most people do. While I am not particularly the best at it, I have always found it calming to turn my brain off for a little bit and just focus on the drawing in front of me. Mandalas have become a recent favorite of mine to color. They have a lot of room for creativity and just enough detail to make coloring still interesting for older people. While coloring, everyone was collectively listening to the same podcast, the classic Crime Junkie. I have recently developed a newfound love for podcasts of all kinds. Podcasts, I find, are also a great way to turn off your mind and relax, while still being entertained.
Besides having a nice and relaxing time, I really enjoyed hanging out with fellow Arts Scholars in a setting outside of class. It was great to meet some of the freshmen and reconnect with some of my sophomore peers. It was a great connecting experience with everyone, as we were all doing the same task, being entertained by the same story. I normally find that I treat these Pentathlon events like a serious event that I need to attend and critically review. However, this event has shown me that enjoying a simple and relaxing task, like coloring, can be valuable both as an artist and as a person.
"LITTLE WOMEN: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL" AT THE CLARICE SMITH CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
#theatre on October 25, 2021
Ever since I saw Greta Gerwig’s film Little Women on the big screen, pre-pandemic, I have been in love with the story. I never grew up with siblings, but seeing the March sisters’ relationship has always been really special to me. It’s what I’ve always dreamed having a sibling would be like. For this and many other reasons, the story of Little Women has made a massive impact in so many people’s lives, no matter how it’s presented. So when I heard that UMD’s theatre department was putting on the musical version of Little Women, I knew I had to audition for it (it also did help that I was required to as a theatre major).
While I didn’t get cast, I was still super excited when the show came around for performances. I went to see both the understudy and overstudy cast performances as I had friends in both casts. I found that while both casts had a great emotional impact on the audiences, the set, lighting and costume designs emphasized this aspect even more. Whether it be the comforting home set of the March family or the soft, daylight-esque lighting, these design aspects emphasized the personal aspect of the show for me and others in the audience. By employing familial and comforting design aspects to an already personal and familiar show for many, the cast, crew, directors and designers managed to make an already emotional story even more personal to all audiences.
"HOOKMAN" AT THE CLARICE SMITH CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
#theatre on November 21, 2021
As a theater major, we are required to assist backstage on at least two separate shows as a course requirement, no matter what your concentration is. My first course like this was working on the backstage crew as a dresser for the show “Hookman” by Lauren Yee. When first assigned this place, I was really excited. I loved the story of the show and have always had an interest in costuming. This show was particularly exciting for me because it involved learning how to use special effects makeup, particularly blood effects on stage. While this proved to be tedious at times, it was an experience that was really rewarding and a great learning experience.
One of the coolest and most effective special effects I got to do was in the scene where the character Yoonji gets her face torn off by the Hookman. We had to figure out how to make this happen without it looking too fake. What we decided to do was put the bloody face inside of a trash can on stage and have the Hookman reach in and pull it out. While this was happening, Yoonji reached into the trash can and put blood on her own face to give the illusion that her face was torn off. This ended up being really believable to the audience and was one of the coolest technical effects of the show. It heightened the story and helped the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
PENTATHALON SEMESTER 4
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of five art events during my third semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
"THE HOUSE" ON NETFLIX
#film on February 6, 2022
To kick off my last semester of Arts Scholars, I thought I would take it easy and watch a movie to get back in the swing of things. I had seen ads for this movie quite frequently and knew I had to watch it when I ended up getting a TikTok reviewing it. One of the main attractions of the movie for me was the fact that it was all done using stop-motion animation. I’ve always been super fond of this style of animation because of the amount of care and skill that goes into it. I’ve normally seen stop-motion only done with characters made of clay but some of the characters in The House were also made of felt! This was particularly interesting for me, not only because it was something I’ve never seen before, but also because it expanded on the art form.
The other main attraction of The House for me was the formatting of the film. It was broken into three parts, each of which told a completely different story, with the only relating factor being the setting. All of the stories took place in the same house, which seems to attract strange and spooky occurrences. This formatting was something I had never encountered before. I found it that made me focus on each of the characters and how their stories intertwined more, rather than where they were. I felt very connected to each of the characters because of this, making their individual stories more impactful as well.
MARYLAND NIGHT LIVE SEASON 8 AT STAMP
#presentation on February 20, 2022
Last weekend, I attended the Season 8 show of Maryland Night Live with some of my friends from Arts Scholars. Often, I don’t get to attend Pentathlon events with others as our schedules don’t always line up well. However, this was an event we all really wanted to go to, so we all managed to make time for it. I’ve gone to an MNL show in the past and really enjoyed it. It was really fantastic seeing my peers create an entire 2-hour length show that was really entertaining. My favorite sketch was the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie trailer. The trailer was for a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie that happened to take place 15 years after the original books took place. The main character, Greg, wanted to take over the world after the events of the series and it was up to his best friends, Rowley, and his little brother, Manny, to stop him. I think that this sketch was so entertaining for me was because of the combined nostalgia and absurdity of it. The audience was mostly younger people who grew up with the diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Seeing a hilarious take on the characters was something a lot of us really appreciated. The other thing that made the whole show even more enjoyable was seeing it with friends. We could laugh with each other and make inside jokes along the way. All in all, the show was very well done and I can’t wait to see what Maryland Night Live comes up with next!
"FEFU AND HER FRIENDS" AT THE CLARICE
#theater on March 6, 2022
For the past 6 weeks, I had the privilege of being the understudy for the role of Fefu in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ production of Fefu and Her Friends. This was my first experience being cast in a show at the Clarice in the TDPS department. I was beyond excited to be a part of the show, but I wasn’t sure of what to expect, since I had never been a part of a production of this level and I had never been a full-time understudy as well. One of my favorite parts of the process was table work. This was something I had never encountered in a rehearsal process before. Table work involved everyone in the cast sitting down with the director and assistant director and discussing the context, sub-context and character work throughout the show. For a show like Fefu and Her Friends, this was vital, as this show is notorious for being only studied and never produced. Throughout this process, I was able to connect more deeply with Fefu (and other characters in the show as well) and analyze the meanings behind certain literary and design elements of the show. This process is something that I hope to continue when I work on other projects, as I found that it really enhanced my own understanding of the art I was creating.
"HEATHERS MISCAST CABARET" WITH 32 BARS
#music on April 2, 2022
This Saturday, I attended the Heathers Miscast Cabaret performance with 32 Bars. Everyone performed many of the songs from Heathers: the Musical with the cast and production team performing songs by characters other than their own. For example, “Candy Store,” a major number featuring three of the female leads, was instead sung by the three male leads of the show. Heathers is a satirical dark comedy, therefore, some of the numbers are very intense and emotional. However at Miscast, people took these serious songs and performed them in a comedic fashion, which was a really refreshing experience, especially since I have spent a lot of time working with these songs as a choreographer. I got the chance to perform in the opening number, “Beautiful”, as Heather Duke, with my friends, Gracie and Alana as Heather MacNamara and Heather Chandler, respectively. I am typically on stage performing, just as the cast was on this night. During this process, I decided to take a more production-based position and choreograph with Gracie. While I have enjoyed the process very much, I feel that I may have gotten a bit out of touch with the experience of performing on stage. Performing in the Miscast Cabaret helped ground myself in that experience and look at how I choreograph in a new light.
EMOTIVE OWLS: FOCUS GROUP
#ArtsScholars #visualart on April 4, 2022
These past few weeks of classes have been getting progressively more and more stressful for me, but for many others I am sure. With the semester ending, projects and exams are continually piling on top of each other. Many of us just try to plow past these feelings of stress and anxiety, in an attempts to just try and get through the rest of the semester. When I attended the Emotive Owls focus group, I noticed that many of the people in the room were feeling the same way as I was. That shared feeling gave me a little sense of comfort that how I was feeling was ok and I really appreciated that. Ashley, the person leading the focus group, did a really good job at creating that accepting atmosphere before we even began the focus group. The most impactful activity we did in the workshop was drawing our owls. We had started the session by picking from a list of emotions that we were feeling the most prominently and were then asked to draw an owl. Ashley was trying to see if there was any correlation between these emotions and how we chose to draw/color our owls. While this was the end goal, I left feeling better than I had when I walked in. It was really great to acknowledge how I was feeling for a little bit and then be able to put it on a piece of paper and leave it. Overall, I really enjoyed this process and will use ideas learned from this experience in my future.
