So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye: the last post on the blog.

 Hello, actors and matematicians (writing this for the last time feels weird).

This entry will be shorter than most on the blog, as I'm just writing to say this is the last one.

Before we part, I wanted to leave you with well-wishes and a thank you for coming along on this dramatic journey with me. I had fun exploring, week after week, the links between geometry and thatre, specially through teaching, and I'm looking forward to applying some of the things I have written here in the future, once I manage a classroom of my own.

I'll let the curtain fall for now, and until next time, break a leg!

 

Don't feed the plants: puppetry, theatre and geometry.

Hello actors and mathematicians! Today we are discussing a lesser known practise in the theatrical world: puppetry. It has been utilized in musicals such as Little Shop of Horrors and Avenue Q.

Puppetry is a fascinating art form that brings inanimate objects to life, attracting audiences of all ages. Although it may sound fanciful, puppetry is not without its geometric background. Puppetists use geometric principles to craft and manipulate their puppets, creating compelling performances that engage and inspire. In this blog post, we'll explore the fascinating relationship between geometry and puppetry, immersing ourselves in the art of manipulating shapes to bring these magical figures to life.

Geometry is essential in the articulation and movement of the puppet. The puppeteer must know the angles and rotation of the joints to control the puppet convincingly. Using geometric principles, such as hinges and pivots, puppeteers create movements that mimic human or animal movements. Understanding the shape of joints allows puppeteers to achieve fluidity, range of motion and expressive gestures, bringing their characters to life with realism- it's almos magic!.

This subject also plays an important role in spatial perception and staging of puppet shows. The puppeteer must navigate the stage and interact with the props, the setting, and other puppets. By understanding spatial, angle, and line-of-sight relationships, puppeteers can create dynamic and visually appealing performances. Geometry provides puppeteers with a basis for considering depth, perspective, and composition, allowing them to create captivating theatrical images and immersive storytelling experiences.

Finally, and most importantly for this entry, geometry plays an essential role in puppet construction. Puppeteers must understand form, proportion, and structural integrity in order to create puppets that are functional and visually appealing. From designing and cutting fabric patterns to building application parts and frames, puppet makers use geometric principles to bring their creations to life. By using concepts such as symmetry, balance, and proportion, puppeteers ensure that their puppets not only look good, but are also capable of realistic movement and manipulation.

Why is this important? Well, in a class of primary education, it is easy to incorporate puppet-making into a bigger didactic sequence, for students to work with other subjects, for example in a PBL structure. Letting children play around with the basics of puppetry seems to be an excellent way of helping them get the hang of all these geometric principles in a hands-on way.

What do you think? Would you implement this idea in a classroom?

Until next time, break a leg!

The music and the mirror: how choreography turns geometry into emotion.

Hello actors and mathematicians! One of the first weeks in this blog I told you all I would incorporate a subject that was more fit for kinesthetic learners. This is me delivering, I have come to talk about dance!

From the shapes that dancers create with their bodies to the spatial relationships they navigate on stage, geometry plays an important role in the world of dance. In this blog post, we'll dive into the fascinating relationship between geometry and dance, exploring how dancers incorporate geometric principles into their movements and the impact this has on them. with their performance.

Math comes to life on the dance floor through the shapes and symmetry created by the dancers. They explore symmetry and asymmetry in their choreography, using bilateral movements, mirrors, and reflections to create dynamic and balanced compositions. Choreographers are aware of this and often employ shapes like circles or triangles to enrich their storytelling.

Spatial awareness and understanding of proportions are very important for dancers. They must navigate the stage, interact with other dancers, and fill the performance space harmoniously. Geometry provides a framework for dancers to explore distances, angles, and trajectories in their movements. By understanding spatial relationships, dancers are able to create complex patterns, make efficient use of negative space, and maintain a sense of balance and connection in their performance.

The golden ratio, a mathematical concept that represents a specific ratio found in nature and art, has also made its way into the world of dance. Choreographers and dancers often incorporate the golden ratio into their works to create harmonious and beautiful movements. By using this mathematical principle, dancers are able to achieve a sense of balance, balance and elegance in their performance, captivating the audience with the inherent beauty of geometric harmony.

In summary, geometry is an often unsung  partner in the world of dance, influencing the shapes, spatial relationships, and proportions that dancers use in their performance. By incorporating geometric principles into their choreography, the dancers create visually stunning movements and compositions that captivate the audience. The interplay of shapes, symmetry, spatial relationships, and combinations of concepts like the golden ratio and overlay add depth, beauty, and mathematical intrigue to the art form. Through dance geometry, we can witness the harmonious convergence of motion and mathematics, creating a truly engaging and multidimensional experience for dancers and spectators.

It's just clothes: a geometric exploration of costume design.

Costume design plays an important role in theatrical productions as it brings the characters to life and enhances the storytelling. One of the approaches taken by the costume designer is his use of geometric principles such as shape, proportion and symmetry. This essay explores the importance of geometry in costume design and how designers use geometric elements to create visually striking and thematically appropriate costumes. It also provides concrete examples of using geometric shapes, patterns, and symmetry to enhance storytelling and effectively portray characters.

Geometric patterns serve as a universal visual language that costume designers use to convey meaning and evoke specific emotions. By using geometric shapes, costume designers can increase the visual impact of a character's costume. For example, sharp-edged shapes can be used to create a sense of strength and authority, while soft curves and circles can evoke elegance and femininity. Careful selection of shapes allows designers to create immediate visual impact and convey important aspects of a character's personality or role.

Geometric patterns play an important role in determining the proportions and silhouette of the costume. Costume designers carefully consider the shapes and sizes of various elements to create a balanced and visually pleasing overall look. You can use contrasting geometric elements to emphasize specific features, or manipulate proportions to emphasize specific features. For example, a suit with a voluminous skirt and a fitted bodice can create an hourglass silhouette and emphasize the femininity and grace of the figure.

Symmetry is another geometric principle often used in costume design to achieve visual harmony and balance. Costume designers often use symmetrical elements in their costumes to reflect a character's personality or thematic elements of the production. A perfectly symmetrical outfit can convey a sense of order, stability, and tradition, while asymmetry can create dynamic and visually interesting effects that symbolize chaos and individuality. Geometric patterns and motifs:

Costume designers use geometric patterns and motifs to enhance storytelling and character portrayal. For example, characters related to nature or the environment might wear costumes decorated with leaf-shaped patterns or floral motifs to create a visual connection with their surroundings. Geometric patterns can also be used to set a cultural or historical context, helping to represent characters based on a particular time period or setting.

Geometric costume design also goes beyond aesthetics and serves as a powerful tool for enhancing narrative. By strategically incorporating geometric elements into costumes, designers can symbolize a theme or evoke emotions associated with a story. For example, a character dealing with inner turmoil might wear a disjointed, geometric-patterned costume that visually reflects their emotional state. Such symbolic representation through geometry enhances the audience's understanding of the characters and their journeys.

Geometry plays an important role in costume design for theatrical productions, enabling costume designers to create visually striking and thematically appropriate costumes. Costume designers use shapes, proportions, symmetry, patterns and motifs to enhance storytelling and effectively portray characters. By using geometric principles as an art language, costume designers enhance the visual impact of their costumes and provide audiences with a deeper understanding of their characters. and their story. The art of geometric costume design demonstrates the creative fusion of mathematics and artistic expression in the theatrical world.

Lots of children, specially those of our future 

Until next time, break a leg!

Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage: theatrical perspective, how geometry makes magic happen.

Hello actors and mathematicians!

Last entry I spoke of Frozen and magic, and I feel like I cheated a little, because it's relatively easy to convey powerful magic geometrically as a seasoned animator, but, what of the stage? How do you make a live audience believe in fairytales? The answer, as always, líes in geometry.

Geometric projection is an important technique in stage design, enabling set designers to create realistic illusions of depth and perspective. By manipulating geometry, designers turn a flat stage into an immersive environment that captivates the audience. This essay explores the concept of geometric projection, focusing on techniques such as forced perspective, vanishing points, and the use of geometric grids in Sethis designs. These technologies play a key role in creating visually engaging and immersive theatrical experiences.

Forced perspective manipulates the size and placement of objects to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional stage. Adjusting the ratio makes small objects closer to the audience appear larger than larger objects placed farther away. It is a technique that creates a vast landscape and magnificent architecture in a limited stage space, giving a sense of scale and depth, and it's used, for example, to create the illusion of fairy godmother magic in some productions of Cinderella.

Vanishing points create the illusion of distance and depth in geometric projections. The set designer dictates audience perception by placing a vanishing point on the horizon. Lines and objects aligned with these points accurately represent perspective and make the stage look like an extension of reality.

A geometric grid provides a framework for accurate and consistent construction in set design. These ensure proportionality and perspective accuracy, allowing you to accurately place scenery elements, props, and actors. A geometric grid serves as a guide for performing geometric projection techniques, resulting in a visually stunning and immersive stage environment.

Geometric projection creates the illusion of height and size on stage. Set designers convey a sense of scale through the manipulation of proportions and the use of vanishing points. For example, if a setpiece shrinks in size as it spreads vertically, it can give the impression of being huge in height. These techniques enhance the audience's perception and add depth and grandeur to the theatrical experience.

In summary, forced perspective, vanishing points and geometric grids bring depth, realism and awe to the stage. These techniques draw the audience into the world of the work, break down disbelief, and allow them to participate more deeply in the story. Geometric projection transforms performing arts into a compelling art form, pushing the boundaries of physical space.

Taking these concepts to a classroom might seem difficult, but we don't need to ask our students to create huge Broadway numbers, teaching them small magic tricks might help them understand these notions of perspective, grid etc through playing with them.

As always I ask, what do you think about the idea?

See you next entry, and break a leg!

Frozen fractals: how geometric design creates magic.

Hello actors and mathematicians!

Today I welcome you to a shorter entry of the blog, because this week I'm recovering from surgery. I've talked to my classmates about the clases I've missed, and they've told me some things that have been discussed.

For example, fractals have been mentioned, and well, everything I know about fractals I've learned from a musical movie that could be an interesting tool to engage primary school students: Disney's Frozen.

In the lyrics of the modern classic Let It Go in english, the character of Elsa, voiced by Broadway star Idina Menzel, says "My power flurries through the air into the ground/My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around", and in the animated movie, when the Snow Queen uses her power to build herself a castle, the way everything is drawn is very geometric, mostly to help convey the icy magic. 

The way she builds the lamp as something that could keep endlessly expanding makes a viewer that is learning geometry, like me or our future students, make better sense of the concept of fractals.

Click here!

I'll leave you with this, and until next time, break a leg!

That's what you call a dream: how geometry serves actors.

 Hello actors and mathematicians! In today's post I want to discuss something that is greatly employed in both stages and classrooms everywhere: acting. If there's something I have learned from watching future educators´ presentations since I begun studying this degree is no one acts like a teacher who wants to be engaging. And since we put our heart and soul into performing, I wonder, how can geometry help us?

The art of acting calls for actors to embody characters, convey emotions, and interact with their surroundings. Even though it might not seem related, geometry is important in the world of acting. Geometrical concepts and spatial reasoning are used by actors to improve their performances and establish a commanding presence on stage. This blog post will examine the use of geometry by actors in their acting processes and how it affects their ability to portray characters and command the stage.

An actor's body awareness and movement on stage are influenced by geometry. Using ideas like planes, lines, and angles to create dynamic and expressive movements, actors must comprehend the relationships between their bodies and the space they occupy. Actors can captivate an audience with their precise and deliberate movements by examining the geometry of their physical presence and using their bodies to communicate emotions, intentions, and relationships with other characters.

Knowing spatial relationships on stage requires a solid understanding of geometry. The actors must move around the stage, interact with the props and scenery, and keep the stage as a whole. Actors can produce visually appealing and harmonious stage pictures by using geometric principles like balance, symmetry, and perspective. Actors can craft interesting and well-organized scenes that captivate the audience by having a clear understanding of the spatial relationships between themselves, their fellow actors, and the set's components.

Geometry is also used in blocking, the choreographed movement and placement of actors on stage. For each character in a scene, directors and actors use geometric principles to determine their positions, angles, and movement trajectories. The precise arrangement of actors on stage enhances the dramatic effect, creates visual interest, and guides the audience's focus. For actors to comprehend the staging instructions and carry out their movements with accuracy and purpose, geometry provides a framework.

In summary, it plays a significant role in acting techniques, enhancing an actor's body awareness, movement, spatial relationships, and stage compositions. By applying geometric principles, actors can create precise and intentional movements, compelling stage pictures, and dynamic interactions with their scene partners. The understanding of geometry enables actors to communicate emotions, intentions, and relationships effectively, captivating audiences through their physical presence and stagecraft. Through the integration of geometry into acting techniques, actors elevate their performances, bringing characters to life with depth, authenticity, and a heightened awareness of the spatial dynamics that shape their theatrical presence. Actors must be aware of the distance between themselves and other characters, as well as the angles and physical orientations that convey different emotional dynamics. By utilizing geometric principles, actors can create meaningful connections and establish the desired relationship dynamics through their spatial positioning and body language, adding depth and authenticity to their performances.