VERA'S BRAINSTORM

Stimuli ideas~

1. Endangered Species

• What if literary arts is dying out? We could be the group of students that try to save it by putting up a musical

2. Success at Last

• A group of people trying to break up relationships between people and they succeed, sending the entire world into war

3. CIRCLES & SQUARES

• Different genders represented by both shapes; it portrays how different we are dimensionally

Stimuli

ENDANGERED SPECIES
When i think of an endangered species, i immediately think of an animal or plant, which are most common. However, i really like Ms Lenden's idea of the concept of the IJ girl being extinct. Society has impacted and shaped all of us all over the world to behave in a certain type of way. Another idea could be our ancestral and cultural beliefs that are endangered. Some of today's youth of seem to be losing tradition and have just do not respect culture or religion anymore. This could be a topic we discuss as traditions, culture and religion are what started our small Nation.


CIRCLES AND SQUARES
This reminds me of Obstacle courses. maybe we could do an obstacle course and show how there are many things in our way each day and we as human beings face plenty of setbacks, but we can also show that we cannot back down. That every obstacle can be overcomed. Another thing that reminds me of Circles and Squares is the Galaxy and how unlimited it is. The stars, constellations and planets and whatever they have up there is another world on it's own. It's something new for us to explore.


SUCCESS AT LAST!
To me success is getting everything you dreamed and worked for. So my was of "success at last" is having a perfect family with a stable job and a normal life. 


LAUREN <3

Stimuli

An endangered species?

Endangered;threatened with extinction
What if an endangered species can once again not be endangered? Like just probably maybe it was just a thought that a particular something is going to disappear/wiped off but somehow it is not the case, somehow if you are just able to "ignite" the particular factor, it would no longer face the danger of being endangered.  For eg, Water is "poured" to diminish an extremely huge fire but somehow or rather it wasnt put out properly and there is still a very small "spark" there which if anything flammable is added to it, it would become ablaze again . 


Circles and Squares 


By using the ideas of mirrors we can probably show how diff shape of mirrors (i.e a person's mind ) show the reflection of itself and how it think about oneself. 


Succes At Last '
 
Is like how your life is one huge big milestone that you are facing with
It's like until the death then one realises that he's happy because he fought with his own life before and at least tried and did dnot even hesistate "fighting it" 


Dawn

Stimuli

An Endangered Species?
The question mark leaves room for doubt so i don't feel that this stimuli should be restricted to animals only. For example how innocence is lost in today's generation? Or perhaps chivalry because i keep hearing "chivalry is dead". Maybe the active teen is endangered. It seems that we're all attached to our iphones. However after seeing quie a few of us posting about endangered sort of human beings, i thought some animals won't do any harm. So some endangered animals would be the blue whale, the african lion, broad-toothed mice, desert rat kangaroo and cougars and jaguars.

Circles and squares
For circles and squares, we can do contemporary theatre and this stimuli will allow us to use our body more. We tend to neglect how our body moves on stage so for circles and squares i don't have much ideas for it but i'm hoping it can help us with body language and the use of our bodies.

Success At Last!
For this one, we could do something related to people who want to see a change in society? Or people who have a message. We could do something about Severn Suzuki and how she's still an environmentalist even after silencing the world for 6 minutes when she was younger. We can explore what methods did she take to achieve what she wanted? and at what cost? This could be paralleled to the guy who started the Kony 2012 project and ended up arrested for .. indecent exposure in public. Soo we can show these people with a big message but how does it take a toll on them?


Ili

Ideas for Stimuli :]

1. Endangered species - the first thought that came to me was of animals. i realised that it was very mainstream to think about animals. so here's what i think. isn't the human race an endangered species? sure our total human population is in the billions but the world we know it will definetly die. so, talking about humans, i took my researha step closer to home. there are in fact many endangered species in Singapore. 1. Trishaw uncles (i only ever sew uncles driving them. never any young people.) 2. Hawkers ( many hawkers are retiring and their family bussiness will not carry on because their children would rather work high paying white collar jobs. 3. Ge tai (if im not wrong its the play for the dead people but nowadays i only see them occassionally. apologies if i named it incorrectly.)                                                                
2.Circles and squares - well, circles are indeed a cycle but it also means forever. a promise - wedding rings. Squares  - i like the idea of going back to square 1  . another idea i have for circles and squares is that circles could be rolling into continuity, time and it never stops instead it moves faster and gains momentum. Squares remind me of this invisible wall that all of us have which we build around our vulnerable selves to protect ourselves.  Squares remind me of being claustophobic, trapped, enclosed, and a mental institution.                        
3. Success at last! - when i think of this i imagine someone literally at the top of the world after scaling a mountain and is now enjoying then scenary. i dont know why but i feel that this phrase can be used in sarcastic terms.                                                                                                             Gillian Koh

Stimuli

An endangered species?

Maybe we could do something like what our generation used to watch/play with/eat/do.
E.g, playing with Barbie dolls, using erasable drawing boards, watching Dora the Explorer/Blues Clues or just using our imaginations to entertain ourselves,etc.
Then showing how the modern generation nowadays have iPhones and iPads etc. when all we had last time was a Nokia we used to play Snake.

I guess it's also showing the generation gap nowadays because of how much the world has changed, and showing the contrast of what the modern generation have nowadays as compared to the generation last time. To return to the topic, I suppose the "endangered species" would be what we had last time as compared to now.

Circles and squares.

I thought we could do something like having Circles and Squares as two different types of people(like what we did in the earlier term, being the ball/stick/cloth). So the people who are Circles could be fun, carefree, cheerful, bouncy etc. while those who were Squares could be rigid, unwilling to change their mindsets just like the frame of a square, down to earth or in other words, a possible opposite of the Circles.

We could show how these Circles and Squares co-existed no matter how different they were(conflicts between them), and show how people can overcome obstacles if they just try hard enough instead of turning on each other.

Success at last!

This idea could be portrayed in the form of different scenarios: what one person could consider a success might be different from others. For example, some might consider finishing a marathon to be a success but others might consider surviving a school day or finishing a book, a success.

Rodrigues

Stimuli

An endangered species?

Children’s childhood that does not involve technology and gadgets. A simple, fun and exciting childhood where children gather together to play instead of always hanging out through the Internet or having their eyes glued to the television.

Capturing dreams that you once had. You can never remember it fully and wonder why as time goes by the dream fades and become fuzzy.

Circles and squares

A six sided square dice. Probability of landing on 1 number is 1 over 6. Symbolizes how life can have many possibilities and outcomes. With everything done, a consequence follows. For example, like a chessboard. What paths are taken and wrong choices made on the way to ultimately reach your desired goal. Or either what choices are made which landed you up at the losing point. Everything that is done is a gamble with no correct answer. Portray this topic on a game board or chessboard, with dices and everything.

Success at last!

Walking through a maze wondering how to get out. When problems are encountered, this is what you will feel like. Portray the inner workings of your mind and how you come about the epiphany you suddenly had which led to your success.

Nicole Cheah 

Stimuli Ideas

An endangered species:

When I first saw the topic 'endangered species', I immediately thought of 1. Wild animals 2. Extinction 3. Hunting 4. Death. However, I also thought about it in a deeper level... For example, people and how endangered we are. By definition, endangered means "threatened to extinction" and when I saw that, I thought about the different ways a person can die from. I don't know why I had such depressing thoughts the first time I saw the topic but I definitely found it cool to do a piece on methods of death somehow... We could have different characters telling us how they "died" and going into the methods of death. 

Circles and Squares:

I thought of a rhythmic pattern when I first saw the topic. In my opinion, circles and squares are basic shapes, therefore, we could do a piece on an average student's everyday life and daily routine. Because I thought of a rhythmic pattern at first, I thought that it would suit my idea well as it could show how that student's routine is repeated everyday. For example, wake up, wash up, get changed, go to school, stay for structured lessons, come home, shower, eat dinner, complete homework, watch TV, brush teeth, go to bed, and repeat the routine the next day. 

Success at last!:

"Success at last!" made me think about victory, exams and competitions. My first thought when I saw the topic was my canoeing competitions and how success was hard to achieve when competing amongst other great canoeing schools. Then again, success doesn't necessarily have to deal with competitions. It could be how successful you are in school and your grades. Whenever someone gets their desired grade for whatever subject, they'll definitely feel successful. I was thinking about doing a  play-within-play. I don't know why but it seemed pretty interesting. We could show a bunch of drama students who had just finished performing at their drama showcase and show how successful they felt afterwards. That way, we could relate to the characters and it would be pretty fun to play characters alike ourselves. 

-Melissa Mae :)

Stimuli

An endangered species?

-mention about dinosaurs and and show how they became endangered and what life was like when they still existed.

Circles and squares

-set of theme park with children playing on the ferris wheel or merry-go-round, etc.

Success at last!

-the latest story about Dawn Loggins (Homeless to Harvard), she gained success after struggling a lot and after facing a lot of hardship

Aashna

Tom Stoppard

 Tom Stoppard's playwrighting career embodies a fascinating clash of opposites. In an interview, he once said, "I don't write plays for discussion." Yet his writings have been the subject of dozens of academic books and hundreds of critical articles. He has also commented "I've never felt . . . that art is important." Yet many of his characters continually ponder the significance of theater, indeed, the significance all the arts, as part of a perpetual search for meaning. 

    He is regarded as the most intellectual dramatist of our time, and his works are permeated with cultural allusions and a remarkable depth of scholarship in a dizzying array of fields. Yet his formal education ended after the second year of high school. Finally, despite Stoppard's stature as a "serious" playwright, his writings overflow with fun: parodies, puns, and verbal byplay across multiple languages. 

    To encapsulate the work of any artist in a few paragraphs is difficult. One place to begin with Stoppard, however, is to recognize that after he left school at the age of seventeen, he worked for a few years as a journalist, including several months as a drama critic. This career seems to have inspired in him an almost scientific curiosity about people's behavior, a fascination with how they attempt to maintain personal, emotional, and intellectual balance as they wander through the uncertainties of life. Indeed, the main characters in virtually all his plays conduct a perpetual struggle to affirm their beliefs and values in a bewildering world. 

    Nowhere is this theme more evident than in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967), Stoppard's first international success. Here he dramatizes the plight of two peripheral characters from Shakespeare'sHamlet, as they meander in and out of the turmoil that ravages the Danish court of Elsinore. The two men are unaware that Prince Hamlet has been ordered by his father's Ghost to revenge the murder of this father, the King, at the hands of Claudius, now ruler of Denmark and husband of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Nor have they any sense of the social, political, religious, and sexual implications of this crisis. All they know is that they have been summoned to discover why Hamlet, their old school chum, seems so distressed. Stoppard weaves scenes from Shakespeare with his own sparkling dialogue, creating a memorable portrait of two little men who seek to understand a world hopelessly beyond their ken. 

    From time to time, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern encounter some Players who entertain at Hamlet's court, and at those moments, the two lost souls tend to regard themselves as actors on the stage of life. This theme is developed further in one of Stoppard's most successful short plays, The Real Inspector Hound (1968), in which two theater critics, casually reviewing a preposterous thriller, are drawn reluctantly into the conflict onstage. On one level, Hound is a delightful spoof of critical jargon and the pomposity that characterizes Stoppard's former profession. Yet more subtly it suggests how any of us, thinking ourselves safe from the hubbub of the world, may nonetheless be whisked unwillingly and even fatally into the chaos. 

    Stoppard's next major play, Jumpers (1972), accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of bringing the world of contemporary philosophy to the theatre. Throughout the play, the protagonist, who shares the name of twentieth-century British philosopher G. E. Moore, prepares for an academic debate on the nature of moral values. His ruminations are frequently interrupted, however, by the shenanigans of a troupe of renegade gymnast/philosophers who, believe it or not, have seized the British government. Part of the background to these bizarre goings-on is the 1969 landing on the moon, and the way that this event, so Stoppard suggests, altered humanity's perception of itself. The play is ultimately a reaction against the modern denial of values, and an affirmation that something inherent within us makes us human, and allows us to maintain faith in goodness and beauty. 

    Stoppard's first attempt to create historical drama was Travesties (1974), which uses as a starting point the coincidence that novelist James Joyce, Russian revolutionary Lenin, and Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara all lived in Zurich, Switzerland during World War I. No historical evidence indicates that the three ever encountered one another, but in Stoppard's imagination they do so. The text is complicated by the use of an elderly narrator, whose frazzled memory muddles details of plot beyond description. In the midst of the confusion, though, we may discern parallels between the goals of the artistic revolutionary and those of the political revolutionary, as well as the need for all individuals to establish a purpose for their existence. 

    These brief outlines suggest some of the themes that have buttressed Stoppard's extensive dramatic output. In more recent works, he has moved through a great range of political, social, religious, and scientific issues, many of which may be found in Arcadia, along with perspectives on Time, Poetry, Love, and other subjects too numerous to elucidate here. Perhaps the most important point to remember, though, is that no matter how intellectually daunting the material, Arcadia is, in fact, a "play," and that at its foundation lies a joy and creative energy to be found uniquely in the magic of theater.