Graham cracker

On February 16, 2016 I performed the graham cracker conservation activity on 5-year-old Kiara and 8-year-old jasmine. I took a whole piece of graham cracker and broke it into 2 pieces and put it on my side. Then I took 2 fourth pieces and gave them to Kiara. I asked her if we shared them equally. She looked for a second, paused and finally grabbed all the pieces and held them next to each other. She said, “no, yours are bigger than mine.” I started off the same way with jasmine. Jasmine said, “Well obviously yours are bigger.” The only thing different was that jasmine didn’t have to pick them to tell that mine were bigger. Kiara understood why she said what she said because she used comparison to tell how big they were next to each other. According…

I firmly grasp a stick and stab it into my marshmallow. As I hold it above the blazing fire, I turn it to make sure each side gets a pleasant golden-brown tint. When it’s perfectly done, I scrape it carefully between two graham crackers and throw in a piece of chocolate to top it off. Indulging into the ooey-gooey goodness is messy. The graham cracker breaks sending crumbles to the ground and my fingers become sticky from the melty marshmallow. Taking the final bite, I close my eyes to enhance…

The Quiet American by Graham Greene Graham Greene’s fascinating novel The Quiet American is about two men who fall in love with the same women in Vietnam during the French and Indochina War. The protagonist, Thomas Fowler, and another English journalist, Alden Pyle, both shared a love for Phuong. The author of this novel, Graham Greene, wrote many stories that dealt with American and English involvement in foreign wars. Being born in Berkhamsted Hertfordshire, England, Graham suffered from…

The Art of Healing was performed by the Ailey Ⅱ company in the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, which started at 7:30pm on October 28th, 2016. The show started at 7;30 pm and lasted for about one an hour and a half. And it included three dances and two intermissions. The dances were Circular, Sketches of Flames, and Revelations. Circular and Sketches of flames are newly choreographed dances by Jae Man Joo and Bridget L. Moore respectively. While Revelations is was originally choreographed by…

In my research I was interested in the creative collaborations of Merce Cunningham. One could expect for a collaboration to be an intimate process between composers, designers, and choreographers and you could expect for Merce experience to be the same do to his exposure in Martha Graham’s company. In Martha Graham’s company, Cunningham was exposed to dance, sets, narrative and lighting being interdependent, but Cunningham decided to take the opposite approach in his work. He abandoned the…

On July 1, 1941, Twyla Tharp was born in the Portland, Indiana. She spent her early childhood in Indiana but later moved to California in 1963 and completed her degree in Art history in New York. Compared to other dancers, at a young age, she learnt quite a number of genres in the arts like ballet, tap, jazz, modern and music. When she was just a year and a half old she was already given piano lessons. Her first dance lesson was at the Vera Lynn School of Dance. During her dancing years, she had…

1. Who created the syllabus and why? a. The Vaganova syllabus was created by Russian dancer Agrippina Vaganova. b. She created this syllabus with her backgrounds in French, Italian, and Russian techniques, time spent at the Imperial Ballet School and years of experience. The syllabus was designed as a refined way of teaching and training. 2. Where did it begin? a. The syllabus began in Russia during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Vaganova Academy wasn’t always the Vaganova Academy; it…

World War II spanned the years of 1939-1945 and made a substantial impact on the dance world. In finding sources to apply towards researching World War II’s influence on Appalachian Spring (1944), I immediately went to YouTube. The iconic film of Appalachian Spring is a great tool to use when looking at the choreography, set, costumes, and musical score. The set, designed by Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) is very simple, but is highlighted by it’s functionality of one side of an exterior wall, a…

Karen Horney, a medical professional from Germany, had an early interest in psychoanalysis. Horney studied with Karl Abraham, a protégé of Sigmund Freud, however Horney came to disagree with a handful of Sigmund Freud’s theory, including his interpretation on the psychology of women. Horney believed that Freud had a “male bias in psychoanalytic thought”, Horney then introduced the concept of womb envy or the envy in which males feel due to the their lack of the ability to get pregnant, nurse,…

I attended the performance entitled, Urban Ballet, at the Houston City Dance Studio. The studio is located near the Heights of Downtown Houston. Unbeknown to me, the show I saw on Saturday was their last performance. It consists of assorted styles of dance depicting the struggles of being an African-American using the music of Tupac. The Houston City Dance Studio is a nonprofit dance school and performing arts organization offering classes in ballet, jazz, tap, and modern dance. It was founded…