3.4 Mystifique Action -- Treasure Hunt

Imagine: you come to your English 101, the first class you have to take in college. Professor Smith excuses himself and steps out, when the lights go dim, and mysterious voice from the middle of nowhere: A-HA-HA-HA-HA...
The class finds out that their sweet Chris Smith (Professor Xmas) was kidnapped and about to be substituted by the meanest English prof on campus. To get the sweet Prof Xmas back, the class has to split into 2 groups and get on the path to adventure... (to relate to the theme of the course I design the Hunt as a monomyth).

The purpose of this trip is  to accommodate new students and make campus feel like their new home. Unfortunately, LaGuardia misses out on a good presentation of the school facilities to "the fresh meat", and with my treasure hunt i will try to bridge this gap, making teams of students visit library and writing center, gym and financial aid office, apply for a scholarship and find something healthy to eat in the nearby areas. The project will underline the importance of team effort and basic scholar concepts. I'm kinda excited, do you like it? :D

What I have done already is I made a list of suggested places to visit and hide the messages in. I really want to take some time wondering around in the school and maybe find more things to show to the new generation of students. What is going to be most challenging (and my favourite part) is to encode the messages, inspire creative thinking, give hints and clues, but not give out the next place too easy - make them THINK, analyze, troubleshoot. The "boon" will be not only getting the sweet Prof Xmas back, but also getting a much better knowledge of what campus has to offer and, hopefully, a much more productive school time at LaGuardia...

Project ideas - Mistification/ Treasure Hunt

A few years ago my boyfriend at the time set up the best surprise for me - a Teasure Hunt! I had to run from one place to another, decode his hints, find all the right people, complete tasks and handle challenges, guess and make mistakes and come back to the track in order to find my gift in the end (I do not have to mention what was my treasure, do I?) This year I managed to do a few of these projects for my favourite people. So I am planning to design a Treasure Hunt for my next victim and shape it as a Monomyth (call for adventure-> supernatural aid-->treshold--> mentor/helper -->abyss-->atonement -->return). Professor Smith suggested that I should do the Hunt for his next class, but it's extremely difficult for me to create the trip for a virtual addressee and especially for a group.

3.2 Polanski's "Tragedy of Macbeth" (1971)

I have selected the extract from Roman Polanski's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (1971). It's very interesting, that in Polanki's interpretation Macbeth carries less weight of fault than I would guess from the original play, to the point that the director considers it to be the character's tragedy (as if he himself did not cause tragedy for others and even for the entire land!) You can feel it from the opening scene of the film, when the three ugly witches set up the spell in the deserted place. The first object to enter the frame is the magic stick, which draws a circle (symbol of magic, lack of choice). We then see hands which dig a hole in the mud, where they put a hangman's noose (symbol of crime and punishment), a chopped off blue arm holding a bloody knife, which projects Macbeth as a victim rather then convict. The weird witches spill some more blood (spell and spit) on top of the hidden killing arm, which means that more people are to suffer from this wicked spell. The witches leave with a squeaky sound of rolling cart (like a hanging body swinging in the air on the wooden gibbet), and we get to see Polanski's vision of the "deserted place": reflective surface, as if they walk on water, which symbolizes their magic nature. The place is gray and lifeless, smoky (hell) and foggy (stench) - the place one would hardly like to find himself. Besides few words by the witches we can hear screams of  crazy birds, who feel the fear (the place is so remote, that only a crazy bird can reach it). I am looking forward to watching this film. Polanski is an arguable character and personality, but he's got what he's got - an incredible talent for directing and irresistible attraction of depicting.

3.1 Macbeth by punchdrunk: Sleep No More

Punchdrunk production inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth is an experimental theatrical performance which has risen a wave of contradictory response - from questioning its artistic value to true admiration. Theatrical experiment takes place in an abandoned building, and the spectators are not assigned a seat. As they enter the space of the show, they are free to wander wherever they like and leave whenever they wish. Many return to the show, because when they leave first time, they are still extremely confused as of what happened to them this night:) Incredible set design and costumes, interactive acting (where one never knows whether a person in the building is an actor or spectator) lets one fully dissolve into the experience and feel the inspiration of the director of the show. I would call it a "hyper play", just like a hyper text or hyper link. You enter the mysterious and frightening imagination of an extremely diverse and creative team, it's like collective subconscious, its like a group nightmare, it's like nothing you have ever seen before.

Just like Lady Macbeth could not find peace and fall asleep after provoking her husband for the bloody dids, so will you not be able to find yourself in Morpheus' embrace. Don't try sleeping pills, as you might get stuck in your own nightmare for a long time. Look at the photo above - lonely, naked, scared, Macbeth is so terrified of his own deeds and the following revenge that he puts himself in the corner (symbol of no way out of the situation). His nudity symbolizes weakness and vulnerability. His pose (fetus) stands for extreme insecurity. The objects seen on the table include dead bird and bloody knife (obviously, murder) and dirty pots and pans (dirty inclinations of the ones who staged the regicide). Macbeth is in the spot light, like during the Doomsday, and in my opinion it symbolizes that his secret is open, everyone knows. Scary.....

 

Links:

1. http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/sleep-no-more
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/oct/22/punchdrunk-macbeth-massachusetts
3. http://www.punchdrunk.org.uk/about.htm

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I wonder as i wander: refugypsy vagabond

“...with a vagrant strain in the blood, a natural inquisitiveness about the world beyond their doors.” Arthur Compton-Rickett

I need to move, I need new, fresh, unseen, unheard of, unlearned. I love to explore. I am nomadic. Fearless traveler. I cant even finish my post - I'm already gone, took off for the relentless trip, in search of my own personal temple.

I grew up between Estonia and Belarus, constantly crossing over Latvia and Lithuania as I was coming from one grandparents' house to another. My father is an interpreter, he was one of the few privileged people who could travel out of Soviet Union, and I think I take after him in my relentless motion. The break of Soviet Union when I was 6 put about 5 countries on my travel map, and the list has grown up to 17 countries since. I turned 19 during my first vacation in the USA, and I have visited around 25 states throughout the three consecutive summers I've spent here. Last vacation, 5 years ago, I stopped in NYC on my way back to Belarus and ...never left. Do I consider New York my home? More like headquarters to based out from. Perfect location and connection with the rest of the world, an explosive eclectic mixture of characters and cultures make this "human botanical garden" great place for me to be.. for a while. Moreover, the political and socio-economic tendencies in Belarus - my home at the time - were not much too my liking, and I asked for political asylum in this immigrants' paradise (documented refugee hehe). My gypsy part is underdocumented and is more of intuitive guess and gossip. But please do not mistake a nomadic refugee for a bum, as I hope I'm not. Happily residing in my lovely apartment in Greenwich Village, I make a quiet glamorous vagabond, and I must admit, I love comfort, and I hope comfort loves me back:)

My next expansion is down to the South - and I have started studying Spanish for that matter. First time I have set my foot down in the Spanish speaking world was my trip to the gorgeous but poor Dominican Republic. I haven't been to Argentina yet, but somehow I'm so sure I'll love it in Buenos Aires! I am also very curious about Japan, and I think that Japanese will be my next and biggest challenge. I speak or at least have studied 5 languages (Russian, Belarussian, English, German and Spanish) and every next one is easier than the previous, but Japanese must be a special cookie:) With my major in international business, Chinese is more profitable for me, as knowing Chinese I'd pretty much cover the majority of the world. But after a few summer visits to Canal st I doubt China is the right environment for me.. Needless to mention, I'm allergic to communism:D

I love to travel and I love education. Next time I have a chance to speak to Santa, I will ask him to make me Mary Poppins (or, better, Maria Popinska haha - based on my ethnic heritage) - a traveling teacher, who comes and goes as she pleases. With my current academic success of straight A's through 3 semesters, it looks like I might incorporate Noam Chomski's character in my ambition - a highly respected intellectual who's opinion on the world's issues is so listened to and appreciated. My biggest ambition would be to learn a newly developed course for a semester, just adopted by one of the Ivy League schools, and for the next semester go teach it in another prestige university. Learn and teach, relentlessly, always on the move.

According to Wikipedia, I am a Peripatetic nomad - who offer the skills of a craft or trade to those they travel among (most common in industrialized nations). My further wikiresearch made me realize something I could not get my entire life! Apparently, I am a representative of the Finnish kale (The Finnish Kale are a group of the Romani people that lives primarily in Finland and Sweden. In Finland they are often referred to as Mustalaiset (pl.) which means etymologically "Blacks", due to their darker complexions and hair in comparison to most other Scandinavians). No wonder in Estonia (which is across the sea from Finland) they noticed instantly that I look somewhat different! (I thought I should attribute it to my Belarussian half). But the Belarussian people did not apprehend me as part of community either, pointing out my Estonian accent and southern tan:) Nowadays, here, in the US, they call me Russian, but I could care less. I'm universal, I'm cosmopolitan, I am the force that makes the Earth go round:)

Works Sited:
1. image: http://www.hscross.com/wikis/images/3/36/Wanderer_from_the_Resplendent_City.jpg
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Kale
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagabond_(person)