Elena Yeatts-Lonske
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.
Collaging
To the right is a picture of a couple of spreads I have made in a collage journal I recently started. It has been fun to experiment with different materials including old magazines, duct tape and decorative tape, stickers, and markers. It is therapeutic to express how I am feeling by representing it in these images, however abstract.
Film: Fleabag
I have been rewatching the drama-comedy series Fleabag with a friend and words cannot describe how much I love this show. The fast-paced and delightfully unexpected dialogue, Waller-Bridge's fresh use of breaking the fourth wall to create a distinct intimacy with the audience as well as an interesting emotional crutch for her protagonist, the electric performances on every single actor’s part… it all accumulates into a treasure of writing and filmmaking not like any I have seen before. I cannot help but be inspired to write myself.
Stand-up Comedy: Middleditch and Schwartz
I watched Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz's completely improvised stand-up comedy show "Parking Lot Wedding," which is an episode of their three-part comedy series. It was really incredible to see how they were able to take the suggestions from the audience and create such elaborate and engaging stories. They would introduce storylines in the beginning of the sketch and then bring them back at the end, create story arcs, and complex characters, all on the spot, entertaining the crowd for what was basically an hour.
Presentation: Edgar Allan Poe (TED-Ed)
I watched a TED video about writer Edgar Allan Poe and his impact on genre of gothic horror. TED-Ed pointed to form and style as the reason why Poe sticks out amongst other gothic writers of his time. Specifically, Poe crafted his stories so that they could be read in one sitting and so that "everyone word must contribute" to its purpose, what he called the “Unity of Effect.” Poe also “invented the detective story as we know it” with his stories The Murders In the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter. I also recently read a graphic novel version of many of Poe’s stories, which was very interesting. One of my favorite short stories of his is "The Masque of the Red Death" because of how vivid and well-done the imagery is. The symbol of the Masque of the Red Death is so memorable, as well as the scene with the many-colored rooms.
Relaxing Writing Night
I really enjoyed the time this Arts Scholars Event gave time to unwind and dedicate my thinking towards writing. The leaders gave us two prompts to choose from, one was writing a poem based on one of the poems we read and the other was writing a letter to our future self. I chose the latter, and it was cathartic to write because I had a lot of feelings bottled up inside and had not yet gotten a chance to write them down. This event took place over Zoom.
Image credits:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/arts/television/fleabag-amazon-review.html
https://www.netflix.com/title/81122572
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-mysterious-death-of-edgar-allan-poe
Pentathalon Semester 2
Follow along this semester as I document my arts experiences this semester.
SNL
I watched SNL live for the first time last night with my sister because we are both fans of Phoebe Bridgers and Dan Levy. I think that they both did a great job and was happy that I watched it for sure. My favorite sketch would have to be the Zillow ad. Bridgers played Kyoto and I Know the End, which is the set I thought was most likely to be the case and also was hoping for. I was jazzed when I heard the first chords of I Know the End for her second song because that is my favorite song on Punisher. The gothic galaxy aesthetic was top-notch for both of her performances and I especially liked her Gucci dress for I Know the End, which was reminiscent of a skeleton. I was most looking forward to the outro of I Know the End and the screaming which is so cathartic and she did it which was so epic! She started smashing the guitar at the end which is a power move but it wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been because the guitar remained intact, they definitely should have given her a more destructible guitar. Seeing a live show like this did remind me of how much I love seeing and performing in live shows which made me sad because it's been so long! I really look forward to them being possible again.
Art Gallery: Lydia Pettit
For the visual arts category, I checked out the current work of Lydia Pettit. I think her work is really remarkable. In her pieces, there is a theme of her body dissolving, being transparent, and not subject to the law of nature. In one, her body sinks into a bed, in another she is fully visible in the mirror but a transparent figure on the other side. There is a familiarity to some of the themes, like in “I Picked at the Wall Next to My Bed” — the feeling of wanting to pick at something once it has started peeling is common — and “Sometimes I Dissolve,” where we see her wrapped up in a blanket. Seeing these ordinary things depicted like this made me feel seen. Her use of colors are so vivid as well, and inspire me in my drawing/painting as I learn more about color theory.
Film: Schitt's Creek
I re-watched Schitt’s Creek, specifically episode 14 of season 5 “Life Is A Cabaret,” which is one of my favorite episodes of the show. This show means a lot to me for many reasons. One of them is that it makes me feel so safe and welcome. In this episode, which is the final of season 5, it is opening night of a production of “Cabaret” that many of the characters have been working on. Watching them put on “Cabaret” made me so much miss theater and performing in general. In high school, I participated in every show all four years. When I got to college, I didn’t do any form of theater, mostly because I was trying to adjust to being there, and then the pandemic happened. I have rewatched the scene of Stevie singing “Maybe This Time” many times and all of them I’ve cried because of the words to the song and how Stevie (Emily Hampshire) sings them. I learned watching this how much I miss theater, which I hadn’t really realized or maybe just ignored because I’m sad when I think about it. Embodying different characters and feeling their emotions and understanding their thoughts was so important to me and I think it will be again when I can perform.
Music: The Last Five Years
This week I re-listened to the soundtrack of the movie adaptation of the musical The Last Five Years written by Jason Robert Brown. I had not listened to this in a while, but it has a lot of meaning to me. One of the reasons for this because I watched the movie with one of my best friends from high school several years ago and so there's a nostalgia factor there. I also remember singing “I Can Do Better Than That” for an audition or two and daydreaming about playing Cathy. The Last Five Years follows an interesting chronological format because it tells the story of a couple and how their relationship blossoms and deteriorates over five years but it skips back and forth from the past to the future. The very first song, sung by Cathy (Anna Kendrick), takes place after Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) has left the relationship. The next one Jamie sings and takes place at the beginning of the relationship, where he is expressing how much he is enamored by her. The story progresses this way, with Cathy’s perspective moving back in time and Jamie’s moving forward. The only songs where the two characters’ perspectives converge is one in the middle (“The Next Ten Minutes”) where they get engaged/married and the very last song (“Goodbye Until Tomorrow / I Could Never Rescue You”), where Cathy sings lightheartedly about how saying goodbye is so hard when leaving Jamie’s house—she is now at the very beginning of the relationship— and Jamie sings about leaving her for good—he is at the very end. Though the audience knows from the very first song that Cathy and Jamie will not stay together, we are piecing together how this came to be as the musical progresses. I don’t want to spoil too much about the further details of the story but it is heartbreaking and beautifully written and I would most certainly recommend it.