E&H Arts Faculty to present at Appalachian College Association Summit
Emory & Henry Professors Kelly Bremner, Kevin Dudley, Joshua Boggs, and Dan Van Tassell will present a workshop at the ACA Summit in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. on September 24-25.
The workshop is entitled, Innovation Through Technology and Community Collaboration: Teaching Through Adversity in the Arts as a Model. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a number of challenges to teaching and learning across all classrooms, though it brought particularly daunting challenges to the arts which are based on live highly interactive instruction. Rather than be daunted by these adversities, many in the arts called on their innate creativity to innovate during the crisis. The presentation focuses on the connection between community partnerships and technology as a mode through which they not only kept their programs engaging in times of crisis, but also the ways in which these partnerships and technologies forever changed teaching for the better.
Associate and Assistant Professors of Theatre, Kelly Bremner and Kevin Dudley, will talk about the ways in which Emory & Henry invested and expanded their partnership through commissioning eight original plays as a part of an Appalachian Theatre Festival. Additionally, this festival came to fruition through a continuation of curriculum in an adverse climate by leaning on collaborative technologies that already existed in Technology Partners like Vectorwork, Adobe and Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) and expanding existing collaborative relationships with the Barter Theatre that produced new and exciting opportunities for E&H students. As a result, students learned to work remotely and in small bubbled work groups to creatively perform, design, edit, and support projects designed for “New Media.” They actively engaged as learners and as innovators working as peers to their faculty collaborators.
Joshua Boggs, Assistant Professor of Music, will reflect on expectation in the arts of a product or formal production, even in less than optimal circumstances. He and his choirs took the time to learn about the options that exist to rehearse and perform effectively outdoors with the use of technology, and to communicate a musical product to online audiences. In the end, he shared new experiences and created meaningful musical products with community arts organizations and alumni. In-person experiences and virtual products positively helped to shape the future of arts education beyond the scope of COVID-19.
Dan Van Tassell, Assistant Professor of Art, will explore the role of a visual artist in a community during a time of crisis. He will also examine how technology enables makers to help others in unprecedented ways. Due to the shortage of PPE early in the COVID-19 pandemic experienced by front line workers in the hospitals around Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, medical professionals had little to no protective equipment. As a member of his community, a visual artist, and a teacher, he tried to ask himself what he could do to help in the midst of fear, chaos, and so many unknowns at the time. So he conducted research on how he could use his skills as a creator, and the technology available to him through Emory & Henry College to start producing PPE utilizing a 3D Printer and other fabricating skills. This led to broader discussions in his virtual classroom about how a simple act of kindness through doing whatever you’re capable of within a community can be extremely impactful. A visual artist’s abilities as a creative problem solver, and their ability to fabricate objects offers a unique opportunity to help people in ways an average person within a community cannot.
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