Semester 3

Arts TRYathlon #1: Maryland Renaissance Festival

9/13/2025, Crownsville, MD Fairgrounds,

Maryland Renaissance Festival

#theater

The Maryland Renaissance Festival was a glorious experience of handcrafted artisanship and performance, from the stores and wares, to the performances and shows the audiences could see. During this experience, we saw some of the production the festival prepared detailing the life of Henry VIII, we saw the birds of prey show, we visited near every store we could with a variety of goods in leather, ceramic, jewels, resin, etc. All around us were costumed people, and my handmade outfit got a number of compliments. I ended up purchasing a number of handmade art pieces, jewelry and leather work and a corset. With regard to community-building, this was a critical affair. Surrounded on all sides by people from different backgrounds, identities, perspectives, all in glorious costumes, it truly feels like we all came together for these experiences we were having, and only built one another up. The artwork of the showmanship and performance and acting of the festival players brought everyone else into their world, and as we all played along, we joined together in this world they created. In this way, the mechanism of community-building was the artistic environment around us, the niche of renaissance festivals that drew in people from all walks of life. Artwork can draw people into a collective to appreciate and experience it, thus is the influence of an atmospheric art piece crafted specifically to be safe and entertaining to all, especially those who want to dress in wild costumes. The ingenuity of the crowds, of the people dressed from all fandoms, added to the atmosphere and the preservation of the fantasy. All in all, a day crafted by those behind the festival and added to by those who came to experience it.

Arts TRYathlon #2: Fall MFA Dance Thesis Concert

9/27/2025, Dance Theater at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center,

Fall MFA Dance Thesis Concert

#theater, #dance

This past September, I attended the Fall Thesis Performances from the Dance department at the University of Maryland, featuring two half-hour performances by the talented master’s students. The first, blk/sp_c, was choreographed by bree breeden, featuring performances from Emilia Bruno, Kevin Carroll, and Jalen Rose, centering on discussions of race, with an extensive interactive element and futuristic science-fiction feel. The second, this far, all rivers, was choreographed by Zoe Cushman Walders, featuring performances from Zoe, Emilia Bruno, and Jalen Rose, which centered on ideas of community and relying upon one another, with hues of green and a very prominent nature theme. The works were truly beautiful and wonderful to see and experience, with excellent performances, choreography, and set design. With regard to how the pieces communicated with their audiences, everything from the lighting to the costumes of both pieces worked to convey all that the choreographers intended. Obviously, as a dance show, the critical movements of the works were utilized to convey their respective messages, but set pieces and lighting contributed. The careful and jarring movements of blk/sp_c were further emphasized with the massive triangular structure in the center of the stage, with translucent plastic material separating two of the dancers from the one in the middle. All of which served to convey the disconnect between people. The fluid motions of this far, all rivers were enhanced with the lightning changes, all to convey kinship between humans and the interconnectedness of the characters. All elements of each performance served to convey their meanings, without anything being especially spelled out for the audience.

Arts TRYathlon #3: Haunted House Maker Mixer

10/16/2025, Stamp Student Union Grand Ballroom,

Maker Mixer SEE Haunted House (Nightmare on SEE Street)

#visualart

This October, I went to the Maker Mixer hosted by TA Val to the SEE Haunted House in the Stamp Student Union on campus. The entire event was contained within the grand ballroom, where a maze of plastic had been set up, with costumed actors and props awaiting us at each turn. Alongside some friends, I meandered through the haunted house and, though short, the experience was very interesting and creative in the architecture of the house, the phobias in which they tapped into, and the costumes the actors wore. I think a lot of the experience was centered around how our culture shapes our artistic interpretations of fear and what is determined to be scary and not. The artistic production was carefully planned, each room a specific experience, whether it was dolls or a strobing medical scene, everything played on a pre-existing popular fear. The actors wore detailed masks and black cloaks, holding prop knives and the like and tilting their heads at odd angles jarringly. The production itself was heavily inspired by horror movies, and, as previously mentioned, modern phobias surrounding things like blood, weaponry, dolls, spiders, and the like. Our culture of how we define the horror genre shaped the house itself, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Page updated

Report abuse