The Arabian Nights came to life in the Great Books Seminar!

Last week, UMBC Honors College Professor Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz, under
the auspices of the Honors College Director Dr. Simon Stacey, invited the
remarkable Enchantment Theater of Philadelphia to present two 2 1/2
hour-long workshops in her classes.

Enchantment Theater co-directors Jennifer and Landis Smith screened scenes
from their latest production, spoke on their use of classical music
(Rimksy-Korsakov's "Scherezade"), masks, gigantic puppets, fabrics,
projections, and sleight-of-hand magic to create evocative, nearly
wordless imaginings of tales from "The Arabian Nights."

Dr. Spitz's Great Books students, having read and studied several tales
from the Nights, donned masks and experienced first-hand the processes of
transformation from text to theater, from words to gesture and mime.

Posted: November 12, 2013, 12:38 PM