CLAT Step 4B EFA vocabulary

Question 1

7 Stage Types

Answer 1

1. Arène trouvée: “found stage” (outside, spaces for other purposes, etc.)
2. End stage: audience on 1 side, facing the stage
3. Black box theater: empty boxes painted black inside, similar to an end stage
4. Proscenium stage: An end stage with lots of curtains, hanging things etc.; moving parts for special effects; a proscenium stage is like a picture frame: the audience sits on one side; occasionally this stage has a small apron
5. Theatre in the round, arena: audience surrounds stage 360º
6. Three-quarter round, thrust stages: audience is on 3 Sides
7. Filming on location: Camera = Audience “at the end of your nose”

Question 2

Space Lens: 7 PRINCIPLES of Art – Descriptions

Answer 2

1. Visual unity (Lauer & Pentak 2002): Integrated visual message in which the various parts of the message are in harmony with the other parts through proximity, repetition, continuation, and controlled chaos
2. Balance: the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, texture, and space to make a design feel stable
   
   • Symmetrical (or Formal): a repetition of similar shapes that mirror each other.
   • Asymmetrical (or Informal): elements have a distributed weight that is not symmetrical
   • Radial: the parts appear to balance outward from a point of origin
3. Rhythm: the directing of eye movement through an image, via repeating design elements such as patterns, shapes, and/or colors
4. Proportion: the SIZE relationships between visual elements
   
   • Proportion gives the artist a way to emphasize areas by enlarging, distorting or exaggerating them to create strong visual effects. Proportion can be used for perspective or importance.
5. Emphasis: directing the viewer’s eyes to a focal point(s) of the composition, by manipulating the design elements of that focal point
6. Variety: using design elements in a composition to create complexity and uniqueness; can act as a counterbalance to harmony
7. Movement: the path that your eye takes through an image through the use of design elements and principles (such as rhythm) in ways that suggest motion

Question 3

Space Lens: 7 PRINCIPLES of Art – List ONLY

Answer 3

1. Visual unity (Lauer & Pentak 2002)
2. Balance
3. Rhythm
4. Proportion
5. Emphasis
6. Variety
7. Movement

Question 4

Space Lens: Composition (def)

Answer 4

Composition: The visual arrangement of the ELEMENTS of Art in an artwork using conscious thought (i.e., Principles of Art).

Question 5

Materials Lens: 6 Categories for props, costumes, and sets

Answer 5

Props, costumes, and sets can be categorized as one or a combination of the following:

1. Realistic: reproducing reality as exactly as possible
2. Improvised: materials are found at hand and made to represent whatever they need to be
3. Impressionistic: objects give an idea of a thing without trying to reproduce it exactly; attempts to create concepts or emotions
4. Contextualized: realistic materials, but for a different time and/or place
5. Minimalistic: intentionally few objects either for practical reasons or to focus attention on ideas or characters or actions more than things; e.g., Improv is inherently minimalistic
6. Mimed, Imagined Materials: actors use their acting talents to make the audience see invisible materials.

Question 6

Participant Organization Lens: Musical Terms

Answer 6

Two primary types of PO in music:

Texture: horizontal and vertical relationships of participants’ contributions, comparable to the weave of a fabric (Appel 1972:842)

• solo singer: monophony
• multiple singers: polyphony, homophony

SONG FORM: participants’ roles may be directly related to sequential segments required by a genre

• Hocketing (and interlocking): In interlocking texture, melody is created by multiple instruments that play at specific times to produce the melody
• Call and response: requires the roles of leader and chorus

Question 7

Participant Organization Lens: 11 Drama participants

Answer 7

Performance group members:

1. Actor: a person who portrays a character in a performance.
2. Scriptwriter: (may not have one: the “script” may reside in the actors’ collective memory or tradition)
3. Director: oversees and orchestrates the production (Ball 1984)
4. Crew:
   
   • Design crew: Scenic/set designer, set and costume designers and builders, choreographer, dramaturg…
   • Stage crew: property master, sound tech, stage hands who help unseen during a production
   • Stage manager: coordinates smooth communication between director, actors and backstage; technical details during performance, costuming, setting, and prompting if an actor forgets a line)
   • Light designers and operators
   • Nonmatrixed performers
   • Foley artist—specialized in creating sound effects
5. Audience:
   
   • Spect-actors: when the line between spectator and actor is blurred and the audience participates actively in the performance. (Barber, Collins, Ricard 1997)

Question 8

Participant Organization Lens: Dance

Answer 8

Dancer Organization (127):

• Solo: One person is moving, whether truly alone or in the midst of a nonmoving group. This dance may be related to a rite of passage, exceptional virtuosity, social status, etc.
• Ensemble: A small group of people moving either in unison, counterpoint, or in contact with one another and/or a soloist.
  
  • Solo within an ensemble or corps
• Corps: A large group moving in unison, canon (dancers repeating exactly the movements of a first dancer, one after the other), or other large coordinated efforts.
  
  • Ensemble within a corps

Relationship Terminology (128) – Guest (2005:296-298)

• Awareness
• Addressing
• Contact
• Support
• Grasping
• Interlacing
• Transient relationships
• Retained relationships
• Canceled relationships

Question 9

Participant Organization Lens: Visual Arts Terms

Answer 9

Participant Organization Lens: Visual Arts Terms

Roles and processes in visual art creation: creators, manipulators, experiencers

• Creators: produce visual art objects; ask for local names for people filling these roles.
• Manipulators: play, place, wear, hold, or otherwise use the art objects in an event
  
  • What is the person doing with the object? Are there restrictions on who can do it? How does what they’re doing with the object affect how people experience it?
• Experiencers: those who receive the meanings encoded in the objects intended by their creators and manipulators

Question 10

Shape Through Time Lens: Musical Terms (two types of musical segments, 4 form subparts)

Answer 10

Two types of musical segments:

1. Song: a composition consisting minimally of rhythm, melody, and text
2. Piece: a composition consisting minimally of rhythm and melody, but NO TEXT
   
   • Be aware some cultures do not have a metaterm to distinguish a song with text and a piece of music without text.

• Form: The organization of songs and pieces
  
  • Phrase: A, B, C; a brief section of music, complete in itself, but not self-sufficient (Shelemay 2001).
  • Motif – a, b, c; a salient combination of notes
    
    • Variation: a motif by one change– a¹, B², etc.
    • Motif or phrase upon which a new one is based – b^a, C^b, etc.
  • Note: a minimal structural unit of pitch or rhythm produced by a voice or instrument
  • Beat: a single time unit, sounded or not
• Common song/piece forms:
  
  • Responsorial: call and response
  • Antiphonal: two groups sing or play alternately
  • Strophic: all stanzas of the text are sung to the same music, in contrast to a song with a new melody for each stanza [through-composed], (Apel 1972)
    
    • E.g., hymns are songs with strophic structure. They often also have a refrain.
  • Through-composed: a song with no repeated melodies: ABCDEFG
    
    • Text load: number of distinct words in a song/OVA
      
      • High text load- no repetition
      • Low text load- much repetition
  • Progressive: each section has different material but there is some repetition AABBCCDD…
  • Theme and Variations (western) – AA²A³A⁴; Canon in D
  • Litany – one short phrase that is reiterated (Nettl 1956)

Question 11

Shape Through Time Lens: 11 Drama features that signal changes in performance (small–> big)

Answer 11

Look for features signaling changes through performance features below:

1. Line: One utterance/speech
2. Gesture: One bodily movement
3. Cross: A performer changes positions in the performance space, aka performance’s blocking.
4. Beat: one interaction between two performers; or a pause
5. Story event: One grouping of related beats
6. French scene: An event in the story with the same exact group of actors on stage; changes each time an actor enters or exits.
7. Scene (American/English definition): A group of story events in the same setting
8. Act: A set of scenes that tell a major section of a story (in one location); a major story.
9. Play: A full story with a beginning, middle, and end.
10. Play series or play cycle—Several plays performed as one event.
11. Epic play cycle—A series of play cycles performed as a series of events

Question 12

Performance Features Lens: 10 Musical Terms (& 8 sub-terms)

Answer 12

1. Timbre: The quality (“color”) of a musical tone

2. Text setting: Number of notes per speech syllable in a song

3. Texture: Horizontal and vertical relationships of musical materials, like the weave of a fabric (Appel 1972)

• Monophony: a single melody with no accompaniment or harmony; e.g., opening to “We will Rock You” by Queen
• Homophony: parallel harmonies of different voices/instruments, or one primary melody supported by backing accompaniment/vocals; e.g., hymns, barbershop quartets, most popular western musics
• Independent Polyphony: melodic voices move in completely different directions; e.g., Movement I from Bach’s church cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, or the layered middle part of “Come on Eileen” that gets progressively faster
  
  • Canon (round): material of 1st voice repeated by 1+ following voices (“Row Your Boat”)
• Heterophony: simultaneous variations of one single line of melody played together, one with more notes or ornamentation; common in non-western musics, e.g., Javanese gamelan

4. Rhythm: the whole feeling of movement in music, or the pattern of long and short notes

• Proportional rhythm – smaller rhythmic units are simple proportions of larger units
• Polyrhythm: simultaneous use of contrasting rhythms (Ghana)

5. Tempo: Speed at which beats occur; measured in beats per minute (bpm) or MM (Maelzel’s metronome); count beats per 15 seconds X 4 = total bpm

6. Dynamics: Volume or changes in volume, or how loud or how soft the different tones in music are (Bakan 2012)

7. Pitch: a sound with a particular continuous frequency (also called a note, but that is not as specific/precise)

8. Indeterminate pitch: shakers, drums, percussive instruments, etc., i.e., note pitches/notes

9. Harmony: what occurs when more than one note is played or sung at the same time (Chase 2021)

10. Melody: a succession of musical notes; the horizontal aspect of pitches in music.

• Melodic character: disjunct (disconnected, jumpy), conjunct (smooth flow)

Question 13

Performance Features Lens: Drama Terms – 3 acting styles

Answer 13

Acting styles:

1. Realistic acting: emotion is experienced onstage, not only displayed
2. Brechtian acting—the actor interprets a role but remains outside of it; emotion is displayed, not experienced; the actor quotes the character rather than being the character (Schechner 2006)
3. Codified action—A performer uses a symbol system of movements, gestures, & makeup whose meanings are set by tradition and passed down from generation to generation; background knowledge is required by audience; emotion is displayed. Brechtian acting intends to cause audiences to wrestle with ideas; a type of breaking the 4th wall; they’re asking you to think about what is art
   
   • E.g., mime

Question 14

Performance Features Lens: Dance Terms

Answer 14

Patterns of Total Body Connectivity (Hackney 2000):

1. Breath: All movements derive from breath, but some very small movements are initiated or guided by the breath.
2. Head-tail: Connection between the head and the pelvis.
3. Core-distal: Connection between the “core” and the limbs of the arms and legs—starfish; asymmetrical.
4. Homologous (body half): Connection between the upper half of the body (head, arms) and lower half of the body (pelvis, legs); 2D, like a horizontal hinge
5. Homolateral: Connection between the right side and left side of the body—2D; symmetrical like a vertical hinge
6. Contralateral: Connection between the upper right and lower left and vice versa

Kinespheres:

1. One-dimensional or one-directional “pull”: forward/backward, side/side, up/down (often a pin-like posture), as if standing within a life-size octahedron and touching the connecting points.
2. Two-dimensional or two directions “pull”: forward and up/down, backward and up/down, side and up/down, forward and side/side, backward and side/side (often a wall-like posture in the vertical “door,” sagittal “wheel,” and horizontal “table” planes), as if standing within a life-size icosahedron (i.e., with twenty plane faces) and touching the connecting points.
3. Three-dimensional or three directions “pull”: forward/side / up or down, backward/side / up or down, as if standing within a life-size cube and touching the connecting points—can include ball-like or screw-like postures.

• Up/down dimension: E.g., doing the “cherry picker” when you reach straight up with your arm and then return your arm to its resting position by your side.
• Left/right dimension –An example would be strongly “head-tail” head movement, where the head moves right or left suddenly and the spine follows with a right or left wave.
• Front/back dimension –An example would be kicks out to the front in Ukrainian dancing.
• Door plane (coronal) –An example would be if you were simply doing jumping jacks.
• Table plane (transverse) –An example would be in Ukrainian dancing when one dancer holds his arm out (at about 45 degrees, but still level) to acknowledge another dancer.
• Wheel plane (sagittal) –An example would be a cartwheel.
• Diagonals –An example would be if dancer was to hold one arm out to towards the up left front while balancing by sticking one leg out towards the down right back.

MOVEMENT PHRASING (Maletic 2004):

1. Even—maintaining the same level of intensity
2. Increasing—energy starting at one level and going to a more intense level, which can also end with an impact or sudden stop
3. Decreasing—starting at a high energy level and becoming less, which can also begin with an impulse or outburst
4. Increasing-decreasing—builds energy up and then diminishes
5. Decreasing-increasing—Diminishes intensity and then builds intensity
6. Accented—spurts of intensity or energy that can be repeated with pauses or stillness
7. Vibratory—a series of quick and repetitive movements that can be repeated at various “wavelengths,” which can be strong or light
8. Resilient—energy that plays with gravity, emphasizing the heaviness and/or lightness of a movement; three variations:
   
   • Elasticity—equal balance between strength and light (eg: bouncing a basketball down a court)
   • Buoyancy—demonstrates lightness and has a rebounding quality like jumping and “hovering” mid-air
   • Weight—the strength of gravity and releases into the ground (eg: jumping in the air and spending more energy on the ground than in the air).

Movement dynamics/efforts (Maletic 2004):

1. Space: about the performer’s ATTENTION; how the performer thinks of and uses traveling through the physical space
   
   • Direct (planned, thought-out) or Indirect (meandering)
2. Weight: about the performer’s SENSING of gravity and its effects
   
   • Light sense (refined, tender) or Strong sense (firm, concentrated)
3. Time: about the performer’s DECISION
   
   • Sudden (alert, immediate) or Sustained (calm, lingering)

Question 15

Performance Features Lens: OVA Terms

Answer 15

Poetic devices related to sound:

• Assonance: the repetition of same or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words
• Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds in neighboring words
• Rhyme: The same or similar vowel sounds at the end, beginning, or middle of lines
• Vocables: Words without propositional meaning.
• Ideophones: A vivid representation of sensory imagery
• Alliteration: Repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words

Emergence: Audience signs of attention/inattention affect performers (Bauman 1975 & 1984)

Question 16

Performance Features Lens: 5 (+2) Elements of Visual Art

Answer 16

5 ELEMENTS of Art are visual features of static object:

1. Line: a path created by a moving point, mark or object
   
   • “the path made by a pointed instrument: a pen, a pencil, a crayon, a stick. A line implies action because work was required to make it.” (Feldman 1992; in Schrag 155)
   • a path created by a moving point, mark or object
   • Paul Klee: “A line is a dot out for a walk.”
   • Types: Implied (suggested by positions of object) and Literal
2. Shape: A 2D area, often formed by lines, usually with defined edges or colors
   
   • Geometric: clear edges; achieved with tools
   • Organic: natural, less well-defined edges; free form, absence of straight lines
3. Value: range of lightness and darkness in an image; shades of colors
   
   • Creates depth by giving 3D appearance to objects
4. Color (hue/shades/tints/tones): the way light is reflected from or emitted by an object as interpreted by the eyes
5. Texture: the sense of feeling that a visual image evokes, such as roughness or softness; the artist substitutes an imagined sense of touch with a visual representation
   
   • Actual texture: the tactile quality of an object’s surface
   • Implied texture: suggestion or illusion of actual textures
6. Space: “the distances or areas around, between, and within components of a piece. Space can be positive or negative, open or closed, shallow or deep, and two-dimensional or three-dimensional.” (ThoughtCo 2019).
7. Form: “When a shape acquires depth and becomes three-dimensional” in sculpture, or in 2D art using shading. (My Modern Met 2021)

Question 17

Content Lens: Music

Answer 17

Is there text? How does the text interact with the musical features produced? How does the theme/topic of the content affect the choice of bundled musical features? What purely musical elements might have symbolic meanings? Does the content of a tonal language affect the musical forms used?

Is PROPER COLLOCATION used (topic and style are complimentary) or ANTI-COLLOCATION (topic and style are contrary)?

Do any instruments act as SPEECH SURROGATES (instruments that mimic speech sounds, e.g., talking drum)? Are there any VOCABLES (spoken sounds without overt meaning, only emotions or symbolic meaning)?

Special concepts: LOGOGENIC COMPOSITION is directed by lyrics, MELOGENIC COMPOSITION is directed by tune (tune comes 1st, then lyrics); TEXT SETTING for tonal languages (parallel, contrary, or oblique)?—see Richards (1972)

Question 18

Content Lens: Drama

Answer 18

What is the theme/idea/moral/dramatic premise that influences the structure of the play possibly in terms of cause and effect, e.g., “greediness leads to loneliness” (McLaughlin 1997)?

• What METAPHORS, SYMBOLS, ALLEGORIES, OR IMAGE SYSTEMS help audiences understand the theme?

(See USS for info on PLOT TYPES and CHARACTERIZATION)

Question 19

Content Lens: Dance

Answer 19

There’s a wide range of dance connections to other domains; content dictates how other lenses/domains function (e.g., a mourning vs celebration dance use space differently due to content)

Document how subject matter affects phrasing, dynamics, body connectivity, kinesphere, etc.; articulate variations

Question 20

Content Lens: Visual Arts – 4 main questions

Answer 20

Is the artwork REALISTIC/representational (portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, scenes/events from everyday life, narratives) or ABSTRACT/nonrepresentational?

What seems to be the FOCAL POINT of the image? Is it obvious?

WHY did the artist select the subject matter he/she did? Was it the objects themselves or the meaning conveyed through them? What is the source of the subject matter (nature, spirit, culture, etc.)?

What seems to be VALUED? Color, process or product, perception or representation, text, precision, emotion, extravagance or minimalism, story, social issues, history, cultural symbols (Smith 2007), elements important to artist/audience (Smith 2007), etc.?

Question 21

USS Lens: Main Ideas & Questions

Answer 21

This lens seeks to understand all of the underlying rules, knowledge, experiences, and other ephemeral realities that affect how a work of art is created and experienced by observers and participants.

Questions:

WHAT FEATURES ALWAYS STAY THE SAME IN THE GENRE (STABLE) AND WHICH ARE SOMETIMES DIFFERENT (MALLEABLE)?

Which sounds, instruments, behaviors, colors, materials, speech patterns, movements, or any other kinds of input related to the five senses make people think of this genre?

What artistic or other cultural clues tell people that this genre is happening (or about to happen)?

What meanings, values, or beliefs do people associate with the elements identified in the first six lenses?

Question 22

USS Lens: 2 Musical terms

Answer 22

Scale = all the notes used in a genre and the functional relationships between the notes

Meter = underlying pattern of beats organizing the time span of a piece (Apel 1972)

Question 23

USS Lens: Drama

Answer 23

What happens?

• 3 PLOT STRUCTURES:
  
  1. CLIMATIC (Greenwald, Schulz, Pomo 2001; Hatcher 1006): most common worldwide; they begin with exposition of a problem, build on a series of minor crises to a major climax or turning point, and lead to a resolution.
     
     • PLOT ELEMENTS (in a climatic plot): backstory, exposition, inciting moment, climax, denouement/ resolution, final suspense (optional), conclusion? What characterizes a GOOD PLOT? Suspense!
  2. EPISODIC: often historical; they link scenes by repeating characters and themes more than by action and reaction; happen over a long time–epics are episodic.
  3. CYCLIC (Greenwald, Schulz, Pomo 2001): rarest form worldwide; shows a conflict with no resolution, constancy, or hopefulness; there may be an unspoken question asking the audience what they’re going to do now (e.g., Jesus’ Prodigal Son parable from POV of older brother)

Who are the characters?

• What kinds of CHARACTER TYPES are these characters—archetype, developed character, stock character, personification, self-represented character (actor playing themselves)?
• Are CHARACTERIZATION AND EXPOSITION more direct or indirect?
• What do the characters want (motivation, objective, or intention) and how do they achieve it (what obstacles are overcome)?
• ACTOR relationships to their CHARACTERS:
  
  • Representational (performers display emotion but DON’T identify with character)
  • Presentational (performers identify with character by feeling their emotions)
• ACTOR relationship to AUDIENCE:
  
  • Representational (“real life”–actors behave as if they are unaware of the audience’s presence)
  • Presentational (actors and audience know it is a performance; characters break the fourth wall and behave as if they are aware that the audience is watching)
• FRAME: how does the audience know what to expect (Tillis 1999)? Why do people come? What do they expect to gain? How do people expect to participate?

Question 24

USS Lens: Visual Arts

Answer 24

Identify the image’s…

• CONTEXTS: Cultural and historical (Hatcher 1999); (Morphy 1999)
• Cultural PURPOSES: Does the art form serve a purpose; i.e., functional, ceremonial, or decorative?
  
  • visual rhetoric: the art of effectively reaching a communication goal (like persuasion, education, or entertainment) through the use of visual vocabulary and grammar.
• INTENDED AUDIENCE: Who are they? Is its message acceptable or unacceptable to the them? Are there any ethical implications the object’s message?
  
  • See also Lester’s perspectives for critical analysis of visual message: personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural, critical (Lester 2003); (Smith 2007)

What is the artist’s FRAME [Bauman 1993]? The purpose or intention of the artist. The audience needs to understand the intention of the artist to interpret a work rightly.

Possible frames:

• Storytelling Frame: illustrations portray characters, actions and emotions. These illustrations are likely to engage a reader with a text when they show a key story event.
  
  • Historical Storytelling Frame: shows a story in its original culture, time and place
  • Contextual Storytelling Frame: shows a story in the audience’s culture, time and place; : concepts behind images more critical than historical accuracy
• Background Knowledge Frame: teach audiences how to picture unfamiliar objects and places; e.g., bit in horse’s mouth;
• Symbolic Frame: illustrations evoke concepts; for example, for some cultural audiences, filigree borders around sacred text evoke respect for holiness.

Does it seem that the art making process is more or less important than the final product? (Plate 2002)