Curiosity, connections, and living paintings.

My mother always claimed that my first word was "why" (and that I drove her crazy with it) but I have always been curious about the way things work and the way they connect. As a teacher, it always seemed natural and logical to me to make meaningful connections for my students.

A kind of performance art called a "Living Painting" has been one of the best avenues I have found to make these kinds of connections between curriculum areas, not just for my students, but also for the entire school, our faculty, our student's families, and the community. There is even a historical precedent for this form, called tableaux vivants. The best example of these today are found at the Pageant of the Masters at the Festival of Arts, held in Laguna Beach, California.

A great advantage of living paintings is that they can take just about any form. In "Bringing Art to Life through Living Paintings," page 46, Joanne Stillwagon details how to recreate the classical tableaux vivant--the replication of a painting with the actors frozen in place. One alternative is to turn an artwork (not necessarily a painting) into a stage set for movement and drama. One of the most successful living paintings my students have created was based on a contemporary painting called Night Heron, by a Dallas artist named David Bates. This much-larger-than-life-size painting shows a kind of heron that lives in swamps in our state.

Since I usually do a living painting with one entire class at a time, working with the classroom teacher, we wanted to create a script that would allow every student in the class to participate. To that end, we wrote a script (with the helpful assistance of our librarian) that opened with a view of the painting and two "men" in a swamp, one of them the artist. The artist spots the bird and begins to draw him but then the two men fall asleep.

At this point, the bird comes to life, moves to the front of the stage and becomes the narrator for the rest of the tale. She tells the story of the Cajun Red Riding Hood (a Louisiana version that involves an alligator instead of a wolf), as some of the students act out the parts of the story, other students speak for them. At the end, the heron steps back into the painting and the men wake up remembering this strange dream.

We presented the living painting four times--twice for the school (for lower and upper grade levels) for a PTA meeting, and for a neighboring retirement home. It was definitely a collaborative effort--none of us could have done it alone. We had incredible help from the entire school in rounding up props--one teacher even let us borrow her daughter's red velvet riding hood.

Through our living painting, we seamlessly incorporated art, science, drama, and literature and the kids had a magnificent time doing it. I have never been so proud of my students. And these were third graders!

When we choose an artwork upon which to base a living painting, the interdisciplinary connections we end up making are suggested by the content of the work. We then look at our state standards to see which ones we are addressing through our efforts. Conversely, you could start with your state or national standards and find an artwork that is appropriate for your intended objectives. This dual approach is also applicable to just about any art lesson, not just to living paintings. Hopefully some of this issue's innovative ideas--both theatrical and not so dramatic--will spark some connections for you.

Nancy Walkup, Editor