Excellent first day in John Tolley's Arts and Aesthetics class. He reminded us that people can be divided into those who primarily learn visually, kinesthetically and auditorily. In most of our churches, we give the the people a lot of talk, but not much else. So, the point of this course, is to learn ways to keep the attention of those who are more inclined to take in information through sight and motion.
We saw a great film, "Rivers and Tides" about the work of Andy Goldsworthy. He's an amazing and absolutely unique artist. A clip of the film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5qrE_rBrJQ.
Also, John and two members of the class did a reading of a scene from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da Capo," and we watched a dance version of "Prodigal Son" performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and his company.
The idea was to expose us to three different artistic modes and notice which ways we leaned in terms of our own learning style. It was an interesting and effective exercise. John Tolley himself leans toward the visual and is an avid and very involved theater person. I like his teaching style and the ideas he's trying to convey in the class.
I'll write more about Goldsworthy and the "Prodigal Son" later.
