REMEMBER WHAT MADE YOU START

Most of the time we get brilliant ideas. Very inspiring ideas. Wild ones for that matter. Ideas which makes us feel we want to do something big. In fact most of the times, these ideas gives us new flames. That kind of burning desire that keeps the fire burning and unquenchable. I have been there before.
In pursuing our dreams and aspiration, there is a journey which leads us there. But unfortunately, we do not realise the obstacles that will before us just because we are so much engulfed in this idea or dreams. Obstacles will come, Yes. But that is not the focus. The main mission is to get things done. At times we are hit so much that, we really want to give up this time around. But sorry to ask, GIVE UP FOR WHAT? It is very important not to forget what we are after than to always focus on what is after us. In addition to what we after, let's be after what is after us as well. ☺ Funny right?
What is after you has a purpose and that purpose is to make you lose hope. That purpose makes you look at the problem more bigger than your purpose. It sometimes makes you feel you made a fool out of yourself. It will always keep drumming the sound of "I CAN'T MAKE IT" and before you realise, you are dancing to its rhythm. Don't give up now. 
Anytime you feel like quitting, remember what made you think you could achieve it at first and gave you hope. It helps to keep you moving.
You can make it. Don't let the situations be the drummer of your success. Be your own drummer. And let God be the Composer.

Finally the first semester of my second year in the University of Ghana has come to an end. Examination on campus brought its own headache of siting behind your books trying to revise everything that had been taught earlier from the beginning of the semester till the end of the semester. I had many challenges but in all was a good and fruitful semester for me. For the purpose of this article, I would narrow my essay to my theatre arts course to be precise, theatre workshop. We learnt many lessons. This was more of a practical class. So everything we did in the course of our study had to do with the mannerism of how we handle and cooperate on the theatre stage. Later in about two forth nights to the end of the semester, the class was divided into four groups to research on various personalities of our choice. That is, three personalities per group. Each group presented the biography of all three personalities. Also, at the end of the semester, we were also to present a piece of any kind (poem or drama) to depict the characterization of our selected personalities. My group, which was the first group (group 1) chose, Jackie-Chan, Madea and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as our personalities. The date for the final project was 1^st December, 2015.

At last, the day of the performance came. The venue for the performance was scheduled to take place at the Efua T. Sutherland drama studio. Unfortunately for us, the drama studio was being used for a performance by the African Ensemble of the Music department for their end of semester performance of which each student of the ensemble will be graded on. Ours was also our exams anyways. We had to move ours to the Mawere Opoku Dance Studio. At 19:00GMT, the class was set for a good performance from each of the groups. The performance was opened by the performance of group 4. Group 1 was the third to perform that night.

To begin with, in the first scene of our performance is a UN General Assembly held in New York having Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana being introduced by the UN president to deliver a speech for the purpose of the gathering. In his speech, he talked about how blacks had been prejudiced and dealt with unjustly. He therefore urged and sought for pardon for the blacks who had been a victim of unfair trail. In the next scene, a man in boxers and a singlet who happens to be a movie director is seen in his house watching news. In the content of the news was the release of several blacks from prison which included Madea. This action of the release of the convicts was ordered by the President of the United States of America, H.E Dwight D. Eisenhower. This move was believed to have been influenced by the speech Dr. Nkrumah gave during the Assembly. The Director who heard of the release of Madea thought of how wonderful it would be to have her feature in his upcoming movie with Jackie-Chan since she Madea was known a notorious woman. He therefore picks up his phone and calls Jackie-Chan’s agent to work her way out to get Madea to agree and sign a contract for the shooting of the movie. The next day, Jackie-Chan’s agent together with the producer of the said movie through the help of Madea’s daughter was able to meet her Madea in her residence to convince her to see how wonderful on the side of Madea it would be to be a movie star. She rejects the offer. The producer then leaves his complimentary card with Cora, Madea’s daughter to call in case there was a change of mind. Finally in the last scene of our skit is the movie scene. Cora was able to convince Madea to shooting the movie. In the scene was a statue of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as a landmark of the location of where the shooting of the movie was taken place. Jackie-Chan and Madea is seen in action fighting some bad guys. The director then shouts cut to mark the end of the shooting of the scene. The make-up artists, camera man, light and the rest of the crew begin to pack their stuffs to exit then the clapperboard man comes in with the clapperboard and claps. Everyone on the stage then freezes depicting an image theatre of all the three personalities. That’s how the performance of my group was.

In all, we had a good story line which linked all three personalities. There was a flow and a link from one personality to the other all the way to the last. There were several critics from the judges in the persons of a lecturer and two other teaching assistants all from the school of performing arts. Each member had a significant role to play in the contribution of the success of the skit. Per what the lecturer of the Workshop class was looking for, I can confidently say, group 1 did a great job. Thank you.

Introduction
This article seek to inform my readers about the topic Performance Art in general. Its historic background and views from various scholars about the topic in question. When you think of performance, what comes to mind? Are we talking about a sound stage with your favorite performer, a dance club or a school production? Performance is simply defined as an event that involves a group of people, but this is not always the case as to a live performance, in front of an audience of thousands of individuals. A performance can be personal and intimate or social and culturally influenced. It is very important for one to understand that the term performance art is not performing art. The term Performance Art should not be confused with the more general term Performing arts. Performing arts are art forms in which artists use their voices and or the movements of their bodies, often in relation to other objects, to convey artistic expression as opposed to, for example, purely visual arts, in which artists use paint or canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Performing art can therefore be simply referred to as type of arts that are performed in front of an audience, such as plays, music, and dance. On the other hand, performance art as defined in the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary is an art that consists only of a person or group of persons performing something and that does not exist apart from when it is being performed. By definition, performance art seeks to be innovative rather than commercial, and is therefore not what we typically see in a normal theatrical performance which seek to represent real life situations on stage. This type of art is mostly abstract and always beats the imaginations of the audience.
Marvin Carlson, an author and a theater expert, says that practitioners of performance art “do not base their work upon characters previously created by other artists, but upon their own bodies, their own autobiographies, their own specific experiences in a culture or in the world, made performative by their consciousness of them and the process of displaying them for audiences.” With Marvin’s definition, it clearly represents a considerable shift toward the performers of the performing art in terms of their responsibility for interpretation and expression of the art work. It also indicates a self-consciousness in the act of performance. In the art work of a performance art, no attempt is made to disguise the fact that it is a performance, and the identities of the performers are consciously and deliberately brought to bear upon it.
Performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways, break conventions of traditional arts, and break down conventional ideas about what art really is. As long as the performer does not become a player who repeats a role, performance art can include satirical elements, utilize robots and machines as performers or even borrow elements of any performing arts such as dance, music, and circus.
Performance is a genre in which art is presented live, usually by the artist but sometimes with collaborators or performers.
How It Began
The term Performance Art got its start somewhere between the late 1950’s and 1970s in the United States. Originally the term was used to describe any live artistic event that included poets, film makers, dancers, musicians among others in addition to visual artists. This type of art emerged out of happenings and installations.
In the late 1950s, performance art in Europe began to develop alongside the work being done in the United States. Still affected by the fallout from World War II, many European artists were frustrated by the apolitical nature of Abstract Expressionism, the prevalent movement of the time. They looked for new ideas and styles of art that were bold and challenging than the traditional art forms. Fluxus provided one important focus for performance art in Europe that attracted artists such as Joseph Beuys.
Other manifestations included the work of the Viennese Actionists, which characterized the movement as not only a form of art, but also an existential attitude. The Actionists' work borrowed some ideas from American action painting which they transformed them into a highly ritualistic theatre that sought to challenge the perceived historical amnesia and return to normalcy in a country that had so recently been an ally of Adolph Hitler. The Actionists also protested governmental surveillance and restrictions of movement and speech, and their extreme performances led to their arrest several times.
An artist in Britain, named Gustav Metzger developed an approach which was described as "Auto-Destructive art," in which objects were violently destroyed in public performances that reflected on the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction.
By the early 1960s, major European cities such as Amsterdam, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Paris were the sites of ambitious performance gatherings.
Recent performance art has its roots in early avant-gardes such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. Before the Italian Futurists ever exhibited any of their paintings they held a number of evening performances during which they read their manifestoes. And similarly, the Dada movement was ushered into existence by a series of events at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. These movements often orchestrated events in theatres that borrowed from the styles and conventions of vaudeville and political rallies. They generally did so in order to address themes that were current in the sphere of visual art.
American performance art in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with the rise of second-wave feminism. Women artists turned to performance as a new medium that encouraged the release of frustrations at social injustice and the ownership of discussion about women's sexuality. This permitted lust, rage, and self-expression in art by women by way of allowing them to speak and be heard and given attention to as never before. Women
performers took the opportunity to build performance art for themselves, rather than getting involved in the already established male dominated art forms. Their art forms mostly dealt with issues that had not yet been already initiated or picked upon as concept or theme by their male counterparts. An example is seen in Hannah Wilke’s work when she criticized Christianity's traditional suppression of women in Super-t-art (1974), by way of her depicting herself as a female Christ. During and since the beginning of the movement, women have made up a large percentage of performance artists.
Hannah Wilke depicting herself as a female Christ in her work Super-t-art (1974)
In the 1970s, after the success Performance art experienced, it seemed that this new and exciting movement would continue in popularity. However in the 1980s as performance art was being patronized and enjoyed in a large scale, paintings found its way back into the market stream which posed a major challenge to the performance art. Because the performance of a performing art was live and couldn’t be bought because the art work itself was the artist’s body, galleries and collectors wanted something material that could be physically bought and sold. As a result, Performance fell from favor, but it did not disappear entirely. During this period, an American performer, Laurie Anderson rose to considerable prominence in this period with dramatic stage shows that engaged new media and directly addressed the period's changing issues. Women performance artists were particularly unwilling to give up their newfound forms of expression, and continued to be prolific. In 1980, there was enough material to produce the exhibition A Decade of Women's Performance Art, at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA. Organized by Mary Jane Jacob, Moira Roth and Lucy R. Lippard, the exhibition was a broad survey of works done in the United States during the 1970s, and included documentations of performances in photographs and texts. And in Eastern Europe throughout the 1980s, Performance art was frequently used to express social dissent.
Contributions of individuals to the Art
Chris Burden
Chris Burden was the first artist represented by Larry Gagosian, from 1978 until the present day. He shook the conventional art world and took the new art form to as yet unparalleled extremes. Images of this young artist continue to resonate today: having himself shot (shoot, 1971), locked up (Five Day Locker Piece, 1971), electrocuted, (Doorway to Heaven, 1973) cut (Through the Night Softly, 1973), crucified (Trans-fixed), and advertised on television (4 TV ads, 1937-1977)
In later years, Burden channeled the daring spirit these life-threatening performances into sculptures that embody technical feats on an imposing scale.
Chris Burden was born in 1946 in Boston, Massachusetts and died in Topanga, California in 2015.
“One of the motivations for doing performances, which is going to sound dumb is that when I got out of graduate school, I didn’t have any money. I really wanted to keep making art” recalls the artist at the Topanga Canyon compound where he works and lived with his wife.
His work is featured in major museum collections worldwide including LACMA and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of Modern Art and Museum of Modern Art, New York; MCA Chicago; Tate Gallery, London and 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.
“Limits is a relative term. Like beauty, it is often in the eyes of the beholder”-Chris Burden.
Burden stood in front of a wall while one friend shot him in the arm with a .22 long rifle,
Rhythm 10 1973
Marina Abramovic
Abramovic uses a series of 20 knives to quickly stab at the spaces between her outstretched fingers. Every time she pierces her skin, she selects another knife from those carefully laid out in front of her. Halfway through, she begins playing a recording of the first half of the hour-long performance, using the rhythmic beat of the knives striking the floor, and her hand, to repeat the same movements, cutting herself at the same time. This piece exemplifies Abramovic's use of ritual in her work, and demonstrates what the artist describes as the synchronicity between the mistakes of the past and those of the present. Performed at a festival in Edinburgh
Joseph Beuys
For three consecutive days in May, 1974, Beuys enclosed himself in a gallery with a wild coyote. Having previously announced that he would not enter the United States while the Vietnam War proceeded, this piece was his first and only action in America, and Beuys was ferried between the airport and the gallery in an ambulance to ensure that his feet did not have to touch American soil. Coyote centered on ideas of America wild and tamed. In an attempt to connect with an idea of wild, pre-colonial America, Beuys lived with a coyote for several days, attempting to communicate with it. He organized a sequence of interactions that would repeat for the duration of the piece, such as cloaking himself in felt and using a cane as a "lightening rod", and following the coyote around the room, bent at the waist and keeping the cane pointed at the coyote. Copies of The Wall Street Journal arrived daily, and were used as a toilet by the coyote, as if to say, "everything that claims to be a part of America is part of my territory." Performed at Rene Block Gallery, New York NY
Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me,1974.
Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann, who defines herself as a multi-disciplinary artist, working across a variety of media, first made an impact in the context of feminist art. Interior Scroll is one of her most famous works. To stage it, she smeared her nude body with paint, mounted a table, and began adopting some of the typical poses that models strike for artists in life class. Then she proceeded to extract a long coil of paper from her vagina, and began to read the text written on it. It was once thought that the text derived from her response to a male filmmaker's critique of her films (some of her most notable films of the time included imagery of the Vietnam War, and documentation of a performance entitled Meat Joy, involving nude bodies writhing about in meat). The filmmaker had apparently commented on her penchant for "personal clutter. Persistence of feelings and primitive techniques" - in effect, qualities that were deemed "feminine". But Schneemann has since said that the text came from a letter sent to a female art critic who found her films hard to watch. By using her physical body as both a site of performance and as the source for a text, Schneemann refused the fetishization of the genitals. Performed in East Hampton, NY and at the Telluride Film Festival, Colorado.
Interior Scroll Carolee Schneemann 1975
In conclusion, Performance art gives artists and the performer to tell a story that the traditional art limits and beats the imagination of the audience. The future of performance art is as unimaginable as far as the creative imaginations of artists are concerned.

Sets or scenery designer

SETS OR SCENERY DESIGNER

Introduction    

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cenry or set refers to the painted background used to represent natural features or other surroundings on a theatre stage or movie set. It is also defined as the natural features of a landscape considered in terms of their appearance, especially when picturesque. In other words, it can be explained as the general appearance of a natural place or the aggregate of features that give character to a landscape according to dictionary.com. With this information above, it is not wrong to say that a set or scenery designer is one who creates and constructs the natural surroundings for the scene of a theatrical performance. To explain further, set designer is one whose responsibility is to research, design and supervise the construction of scenery, costume and all the visual aid in stage, film and television productions.

Referring to the definition of sets and scenery designer, it is necessary for the designer to have the following qualities;

*  An artistic flair; that is to say one should be creative in thinking and in the way of seeing things.

*  Able to combine practical and artistic skills;

* Good communication skills; the set designer since will not be working alone should be someone who is good in terms of communicating ideas and concept to the director and instructions to the people they work with.

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he designer should also be someone who has interest in reading. This is because, he has to get the whole concept of the production (drama or performance). Ergo, the designer is expected to read the script as many times as possible, both to get a feel for the flavor and spirit of the script and to list its specific requirements for scenery, furnishings and props. The time of day, location, season, historical period and any set changes called for in the script are noted. The set designer's focus here is on figuring out everything that may be needed based on the dialogue in the script. Stage directions tend to be ignored at this point in the process since it’s not really necessary to the set designer.

All the things appearing on the stage other than the scenery are called stage properties, or props. Set props like furniture, draperies and decorations are the types of things that complete the set and they need to be part of the set design.

Before a set is staged for a drama or a production of any type, it goes through several preparation and idea development. The beautiful appearance you see during the performance was first an idea that was rough sketched, manipulated, developed and constructed. Set designers use several tools to communicate their ideas to the director and the other designers. These include:

*  a rough sketch of the set in the preliminary phase

*  floor plans drawn to scale showing from above the general layout of each set and the placement of the furniture and large props

*  front elevations giving a view of the elements of the set from the front and showing details like windows or platforms

*Miniature three-dimensional models showing how each set will look when finished.

T

he set designer as stated in the first paragraph does not work alone. It is a collaborating thing. First, the set designer will meet with the director and the design team (set, costume, lighting and sound designers), to discuss the details of the set and the director's interpretation of the play. The set, costume and lighting designers also meet and work together to ensure the creation of a unified look and feel for the production. A lively exchange of initial ideas and first impressions helps clarify the steps that each person needs to take in this intensely collaborative process.
The set designer needs the expertise of a master carpenter who then uses the sketches of the designs made by set the designer to constructs the scene since the main material used in the construction is mostly wood.
The designer also in order to bring out the liveliness of the built scenery needs the expertise of the Master Painter. He in order words bring the set to live by the introduction of colours. The Master Painter is responsible for painting set elements under the direction of the set designer, but often the Master Painter has the freedom to choose many of the design elements him/herself.
Again, the set designer seeks the help of an electrician. When sets are built, it sometimes require the installation and hanging of light and other electrical appliances necessary for a particular production. This is when the need of an electrician comes in. In many companies, no experience is necessary to serve in one of these roles as you will be taught on the job. Often, actors serve in these roles when they aren't needed in rehearsal.

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n conclusion, the work of the set designer is as important as the liveliness of the production is concerned. The set designer in short adds meaning to an act on a stage or any theatrical production. If the man is said to walking in the forest, what shows the stage that he is indeed walking in the forest? The stage designer makes that scene real for audience to tell the location of the act without being informed by anybody.

POWER CRISIS IN GHANA

Ghana, the gateway of Africa is one place you wouldn’t want to miss when given the opportunity to visit the African continent. One can talk of gold, coffee, cocoa, timbre and others when the name Ghana is mentioned. As country, we have been blessed with so much to talk of. In the likes of freedom, democracy, peace and unity. Ghana has all but is being faced with a nightmare that seems to eat up the good things in the country. Power crisis.

Currently, Ghana is facing electricity crisis which has now become the talk of the day. This power crisis which is now referred to as “Dumsor” which when literally translated means “on and off” issue has paved it way into being a part of the Ghanaian life. In this era of a world of technology, society cannot do away with electricity or power if it has to develop. The energy/electricity has now become the backbone of every country of which must not be compromised with. The country had faced similar situations. According to the history of the country, the situation has popped up for about three times already in some past years and up till now no permanent solutions have been given out.

In advanced countries, majority of power failures from national grid last only a few hours. In Ghana, blackouts last days or even weeks and can therefore be seen as a major catastrophic failures that has completely shut down production in most companies, including critical infrastructures such as telecommunication networks, financial services, water supplies and hospitals in the country. For the past three years our lives have been programmed to the effects of the situation at hand. Initially, there was a national load shedding schedule time table of which every community in Ghana was supposed to enjoy twenty-four hours supply of power. As days passed, the situation intensified and the national load shedding was adjusted to suit the new development. Instead of the twenty four hours light and twelve hours off, it was rather changed to the vice versa. Twenty four hours off and twelve hours on. At the moment, the situation has gotten out of hands and one cannot tell when next the light would be taken and if it is being taken, one can’t tell when it’s coming on.

It is by no means that the power outages in Ghana have had serious disastrous effects on many areas of our national economy. Human lives have been lost due to life-support system failures. Hospitals and nursing homes have suffered loses, and companies have collapsed having their workers laid off, all due to consistent power failures.

According to the Electricity of Ghana, one of its major challenge to restore this energy crisis is inadequate funds. One of the reasons for this “Dumsor” crisis is that VRA, GRIDCO and IPPs cannot access the needed capital in order to maintain their machines not to talk of importing new ones to increase the electricity supply. ECG on the other hand is unable to collect all the money they should after selling the power to customers.

In conclusion, this current situation at hand can be corrected by the government of Ghana if only it is willing invest money in the electricity sector by buying light, crude oil for the various power plants. There is also the need for good maintenance culture to be able to sustain the productivity of old machines. Lastly, if possible, building new dams and power plants since the total population increases as the day goes by.