Living Work of Art

Grade level: This activity, which evolves from the Eyewitness News performing and writing activity, may be adapted for the whole school as part of an in-depth study of the art of Ancient Egypt.

Objectives for students:
· to participate in group production and preformance of a play, demonstrating the ability to work cooperatively and collaboratively

· to recognize some of the unique features of Egyptian art, its intentions and social contexts

· to use visual arts to integrate ideas and enrich and facilitate understanding and communication in interdisciplinary studies

Visual material

Section from a Book of the Dead

Advance preparation
Classes should be assigned different tasks, each relating to the art. Some groups can research and create costumes and jewelry, others the sounds or musical backgrounds, others can prepare a backdrop, or props, write the script, or be the actors.

Parents can be recruited to help with the set, the curtains, lighting, and so on if the production is presented on a stage.

Teachers might want to schedule the presentation for the school board, parent/teacher meeting, or school assembly.

Class discussion
Explain to the classes that they will be interpreting a scene in a section from a Book of the Dead. This project will draw on many different disciplines--dance, drama, music, language arts, art, math, science, and social studies--and will be a class play or school assembly.

For each element of the production, there must be people working collaboratively. Jobs must be assigned and deadlines set. It may be helpful to keep track of what is being done on a large timeline on the wall of each classroom.

Students should look at the image, read about it, discuss it, and decide how the scene should be presented, for example, from the point of view of an archaeologist finding the tomb or of a visitor to a museum looking at the section of the papyrus, or from the perspective of Nany herself. Time should be set aside to rehearse collaboratively with other classes who are involved.

Activity
The backdrop should depict the scene from the work of art, but without figures, who will be represented by actors. It may be painted or constructed from pieces of colored paper, but it needs to be fairly large.

A script must be written for the actors, and they will rehearse and learn their lines. Students may wish to have a narrator explain the action and give background information, and they may wish to present additional information about this particular piece of Egyptian art from other points of view, for example, that of an archaeologist or a visitor to a museum.

The dramatic presentation can be videotaped and saved as a resource for other classes studying Egyptian art, or it can be done on a small scale in a classroom to culminate study of a unit on Egyptian art.

Connections
Art: Students will research a work of art, utilizing its historical context and their response to it to communicate and interpret that work of art to a larger audience.

Language Arts: The writing of the script will reflect the students' understanding of the papyrus and its symbolic meaning.

Science: Depending on the approach that the class chooses for the production, science connections may be made to the materials of the book or its preservation.

Social Studies: Students will draw upon their knowledge of the culture, religion, gods and goddesses, afterlife beliefs, and burial customs of the ancient Egyptians in writing, staging, and performing the production.

Drama/Dance/Music: These disciplines are represented in writing, choreographing, and scoring the production as well as in performance. Students will be called upon to create music and dances based on their study of the art of ancient Egypt.