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First Colors |
LESSONS OUTLINE (these lessons will follow the "footprints" already completed on the First Colors main page: "Keeping the Story Alive", "Ask Dr. Ike" and "Books, Music and Videos")
Story Music (intonation, chanting, rhythm
and sound accompaniment)
Storytelling throughout the world is traditionally accompanied by music and shifts in tone and intonation by the storyteller (who, in traditional forms of storytelling, often was a singer as well.... a bard).
Exercises:
Group sounds: Tell a portion of the First Colors story with the addition of group sound effects made by the students voices or bodies. They might make a sound with their voices for the twinkling of stars or the whoooshing of the wind, or make a stomping with their feet for the entrance of the fire darts, etc.... Sounds should be done as a chorus, with everyone participating, to make a big impact. Have a hand signal that tells them when to stop.
Sounds of words: Have the students pick a single word (with emotional connotations), such as "no", or "what?" or "help" and have everyone take turns saying the word out loud in their way, each person trying to say it in the most unique way possible, with their own intonation and emphasis.
Have the students review and remember how sound, music and intonation were used in the production of the First Colors to help tell the story, and use this to illustrate how important sound, music and intonation are in storytelling.
Dancing
Pictures (story boarding)
Another traditional way that cultures throughout the world have told stories is through images. These images that can appear many forms, including sculpture, masks, regalia (ceremonial attire), the design and markings on household objects and paintings in caves, on pottery or on walls.
Exercise: Story boarding
Show the students examples of comic strips that have different levels of rendering
skills displayed (ranging from complex drawings to things closer to stick figures)
to give the idea that a story can be told through many different styles of pictures
(you do not have to be expert in drawing to create a story board). Then have
them choose a part of the First Colors story and expand upon it or show it in
greater detail... (examples: show some different scenes from daily life in the
gray world... or show a pep talk given by the leader of the fire darts to his
troops). They draw boxes on a blank page and then show this scene they envision
using pictures in the boxes, a story board or comic strip in their own style.
Help,
Compassion and Sharing (Jarritos)
In the Fifth Colors story, Ehecatl is motivated by compassion for the people on the world who have no color and music, he requires help from the Sisters of the Sea in order to make it to the Sun, and in the end the Sun comes to understand that it is a good thing for him to share his colors and music. The themes in the story can be used to discuss the virtue and power of compassion and the necessity of help when pursuing difficult goals.
Jarritos: We will be creating a page here in the near future describing a workshop for younger students, involving the creation and givaway (to a friend) of jarritos (a Mexican New Years tradition: dried corn is bundled into a cloth, then put into a miniature clay jar, along with good thoughts and blessings for the person who will recieve the jarrito).
Sharing Our Creativity
Colors, music, sharing and culture:
Have the students imagine what the world would be like if no one ever shared
their creative thoughts. What if any one who had an idea for a song, a picture,
a poem, a story or a dance kept their idea to themselves (either through fear,
greed, insecurity or stinginess)? What if no one shared their creativity, by
broadcasting, expressing or performing their ideas? Without this sharing of
the creativity the people have inside of them, there would be no paintings,
singing, dancing, games, inventions, toys, celebrations or art... By sharing
our creativity, human beings have created art, culture and fun... and this parallels
the themes of the First Colors story, where the spontaneity of the Wind, assisted
by the deep wellspring of the Ocean, summon the courage to release the creative
muses from the Sun, and express them to the world, a sharing of creativity where
everyone wins. A topic for discussion could be why it is sometimes difficult
to express or share creative ideas (just as it was a difficult ordeal for Ehecatl,
and it was hard for the Sun to let go and share music and color).
Myths from long, long ago
The First Colors story is a myth, a traditional story from long long ago. This page will introduce the students to the idea that there are different kinds of stories (news stories, personal stories, nursery rhymes, etc.) and will talk about how myths are a particular kind of story. Myths are passed on from person to person by word of mouth, and they are very ancient in origin, so ancient that no one knows who the first person was to tell the story. Myths are tales about the origins of things of the utmost importance, about the earliest of times and the very beginnings... about a time long, long ago... shrouded in mystery. Myths are themselves very ancient and they tell of a time even more ancient, a time when something we might take for granted (such as music and color) first came to be.
The
Origins of Music and Color
This page will show similarities between the First Colors story and ideas from modern science about how color and music have come into our human world.
In the First Colors story, music and color come to the gray, barren world when Wind, with the help of Water from the oceans (Sisters of the Sea) releases color and music from the Sun so that the humans can see, hear and enjoy beauty. A story with many parallels can be gleaned from modern science. To a human being, the moon is a silent place without music (air is required for sound waves, and sound is required for music) and without color (gray rocks, no colors in sky because there is no atmosphere). This is what scientists believe the earth would have been like when it was first formed: no color, no sound, no music... as barren and gray as the moon.
The Sun's white light contains all the colors that we see today, but the colors of the rainbow have to be dispersed by the atmosphere in order to form a multicolored sky (blue sky, sunsets, rainbows). Sunlight creates most of the motion in our solar system, but for things in motion (vocal chords, a drumstick, a crickets legs) to create sounds and music that can be heard by people (singing, drumming, chirping) it is necessary to have air or water that conducts waves of sound. Since the Earth, when it was first formed, had no oceans or atmosphere, music and color had not yet been "released" from the sunlight.
With the formation of the oceans and the atmosphere (Wind, the water cycle) the color and sound held by the sun's light and energy were "released" into the world. At the same time, the first life forms (microbes, "creatures of the sea", who helped to form the atmosphere) began to evolve into what would become an incredible variety of forms (each with their own colors and calls) leading ultimately to the tapestry of color, sound and music we now enjoy on the planet earth.
In conclusion, it could be said that the following sentence
is compatible with both the Aztec myth of the First Colors and with modern science:
" The creatures of the sea helped the wind to rescue music and color that
was being held by the sun, so that music and color could be brought to the earth
for the enjoyment of the people."
A
Story's Journey
This page will describe the journey the the story took, from far, far away in Mexico to Kalamazoo, Michigan (where Magical Rain Theaterworks is based) to the locations that Magical Rain has brought the story to in Michigan. This page will include a map of North America with footprints leading from Mexico to Michigan.
The story also takes smaller journeys any time someone tells the story to someone new. The story has taken many journeys in Michigan, both when Magical Rain Theaterworks brought it to different places, when students performed it in their school, when students told the story, talked about the story and drew pictures about the story to share with parents, friends or teachers. The story is kept alive through all of these journeys that the story takes. We invite you to participate in this journey by telling the story to others...keep it alive!...
In Mexico, where the story began, the story has gone on many small journeys as people tell the story out loud, through speaking, singing or performing the story, or when the story is told through pictures and images.
The People of Ancient Mexico
Mesoamerica (meaning "middle of the Americas") is a term for the ancient peoples of Mexico and Central America. The story of the First Colors comes from Mesoamerica. Before speaking of the Aztecs or the Aztec empire, it is important for the students to know that there were many different peoples, speaking many different languages, who lived in Mesoamerica for thousands of years before the Aztec empire. Stories often traveled from one people to another, and it is likely that the story of the First Colors was told (in different versions) by the people who lived in Mexico and Central America hundreds or thousands of years before the Aztecs. No one knows for certain the journeys that the story would have taken in these ancient times.
The following sites give a sense of the complexity of Pre-Aztec Mesoamerican cultures. The intention of displaying these for the students is not so that they can memorize or understand the details presented (there is far too much information here for that....) but for them to get a general sense of how diverse and complex and dynamic the ancient world of Mesoamerica was.
Interactive
Map of Mesoamerica
The
Aztecs
The Aztecs, or the Mexica, ruled over a vast area of Mesoamerica at the time that Europeans first arrived. A version of the First Colors story was told by the Aztecs. The following sites give an introduction to Aztec culture and history:
A well constructed site for kids:
Kids introduction to
Aztec culture
A good one paragraph synopsis of the Aztecs, for teachers or
older students:
Aztecs:
historical overview
Two links about Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, which became Mexico City. In the ancient world, Tenochitlan was one of the largest cities in the world, just as Mexico City is today.
Aztec
Words and Poetry
The Aztec language is called Nahuatl (pronounced "nah - wattle"). Speaking well and beautifully was and is very important to Nahuatl speakers.
The Aztec word for poetry was made by combining the words "drum" and "song", so poetry ("drum-song") was sung and played with music (as it was in ancient times throughout the world).
An example of Nahuatl poetry:
Aztec war poem
This site is really an entire online book, but the translations
of poetry are quite good, and excerpts could be read or show to students to
give them a sense of the flavor of Aztec poetry:
Nahuatl poetry
The Aztec writing system: the codex. The oldest version of
the First Colors story we know about comes from a fragment of an Aztec codex,
a scroll with pictorial glyphs representing words (similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs).
This link provides a good overview of the Aztec writing system for kids:
Aztec Writing
The Aztecs, like many ancient peoples, memorized their stories
and knowledge, and passed their stories and knowledge on through speaking, performing
(storytelling, acting, singing, dancing) and through visual arts (sculpture,
paintings, glyphs). This can be compared with the various ways that modern students
and teachers can encounter this story, via written words and visible pictures
(Gerald Mc Dermott's"Musicians of the Sun" book, told through images
and words, student drawings, the blacklight masks in the Magical Rain Theaterworks
production) and through performance (telling the story out loud, seeing it performed
with movement, dance and music).
Aztec
Music and Dance
Aztec
Color and Beauty
The
Aztec Empire (sacrifice, conquest)
There is a reason we are placing this information about the Aztec Empire towards the end of this sequence of lessons. We want the students to get a sense of traditional cultures (the ancient world as a whole) before learning about traditional cultures in Mexico and Central America (Mesoamerica - ancient Mexico) and we want them to learn about Mesoamerica as a whole to give them a context to place Aztec culture in (one of many Mesoamerican cultures) and we want them to learn something about the Aztec people and Aztec culture as a whole before learning about the Aztec elite (rulers of the Aztec empire) and its encounter with representative of the Spanish, Portuguese and European elites (the Holy Roman Empire). For older students who have done the prerequisite learning to place this information in context, these three sites offer excellent information on the Aztec Empire and its encounter with Cortez.
Ehecatl the Hero
We will later be creating a page about Ehecatl, the hero of the First Colors story. Ehecatl, the Lord of the Wind, is in fact one of the manifestations of Quetzalcoatl (pronounced "ket - zal - kwattle"). Quetzalcoatl was a favorite God and/or hero figure for many Mesoamerican peoples, both before, during and after the Aztec empire.
This page gives a sense of how Quetzalcoatl was regarded by
the peoples of Mesoamerica:
Quetzalcoatl overview