Innehållsförteckning för May/June 2023 från Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

Muse Mail I would love to say I lived on another planet, or in another dimension, but I don’t. I am just a Scandinavian nerd who likes bubble tea. I live in a house. With a big fluffy dog and a little cat. And three chickens named Houdini, Checker, and Blondie. Houdini got her name from being an expert escape artist. Checker looks like she has a checkerboard on her. And Blondie is completely, well, blond. I would be happy if you could make an issue on language regions. My grandpa is from Finland, and I would like to learn more about our family. If this letter is not published, I will send my wolf slippers to stomp on you. Thank you for being considerate. —MAKI PS. I will also…

Hands-On MAYBE YOU’VE SEEN THOSE BEAUTIFUL STONE SCULPTURES WHERE HUGE ROCKS SEEM TO BE BALANCING MAGICALLY. Have you ever wondered if you could make one? Artist and woodworker Mark Ragonese shares some hard-earned tips that will help leave your friends spellbound. Although he spends much of his time carving “really fine fancy-pants furniture,” Ragonese also teaches outdoor art to kids. His projects range from painted murals to twigloos, or round houses made out of bent saplings. “I don’t come to teach art as much as to do it,” Ragonese says. “I bring energy and activity and a playful spirit. I stress art as a verb, a process, and creativity as a skill that requires practice.” You’ll need Rocks of many different shapes and sizes (Be sure you can handle the…

Who said clowning around won’t get you anywhere? Tell that to Thiago Soares (chee-AH-go SOH-AH-rees), the former longtime principal dancer for the Royal Ballet in London, England. When Soares was a child in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, his parents were not wealthy and had no money for extra activities, so they signed him up for a free circus school designed to keep kids off the street and out of trouble. There, Soares studied performance art: acrobatics, capoeira, acting, and clowning. Becoming a ballet dancer never even crossed his mind as a young kid. Brazil was known more for its soccer and samba than for producing ballet greats. By the time Soares was 12 years old, he was dancing, but not in ballet. His older brother was part of a hip-hop…

On a warm summer evening in Valladolid, Spain, people settled into their seats in a spacious concert hall to hear classical music. But when the house lights dimmed, the performers who filed onstage and began tuning their instruments weren’t seasoned adult musicians. They were college students, high schoolers, and even middle schoolers. The New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) was about to play another night on their 2019 Spain tour. The New York Youth Symphony began in 1963 as an orchestra for musicians ages 12 to 22 from New York City and the surrounding area. NYYS takes itself and its music seriously: They play full symphonies, commission new classical pieces, and go on tour to countries around the globe, just as an adult orchestra would. When they brought their 2019 season…

Taylor slumped in her seat, waiting for the stage show to begin. “You’re going to love this ventriloquist!” her uncle Rick insisted. Doesn’t he know I’m too old to believe a puppet show? Seriously! Taylor sighed as she wondered how long the performance would take. Soon the house lights dimmed and the show began. Before she knew it, Taylor was listening intently to the quick banter and funny jokes between the ventriloquist and the dummy—or more correctly, the vent figure. By the end of the show, she had to admit her uncle was right. How did the ventriloquist make the figure seem so alive? So believable? How can I learn to throw my voice like that? Taylor wondered. The Magic of Ventriloquism Like skilled magicians, ventriloquists trick us audience members.…

I saw it all “in my mind’s eye.” ( from Hamlet) “I have not slept one wink.” (Cymbeline) I need some “elbow room.” (King John) You say you’re not an actor. Then why do you keep delivering lines from Shakespeare? Because amazingly, these and many other sayings that we use every day actually come from Shakespeare’s plays and poems. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and later lived in London. “The Bard,” as he came to be called, was a remarkable playwright and poet. He was so inventive with words that, according to some experts, he added as many as 1,700 new words to the English language. They include hurry and dishearten. He also popularized many other words, such as amazement and majestic, by including them in his…

DO ROBOTS BELONG ON THE STAGE? WE ARE GETTING USED TO HAVING ROBOTS IN OUR HOMES, STORES, AND FACTORIES. What about onstage? In fact, the word robot comes from a play. In R.U.R., people performed as the machine-like creatures. More recently, though, some directors and artists have invited actual robots to share the stage in dances and other performances. Catie Cuan is one of them. “Robots are for everyone,” she says. Cuan began her career as a dancer and choreographer—a person who maps out the movements of dancers. But then she fell in love with robots and has pioneered a new field called robot choreography. Today, she’s studying robotics as a PhD student at Stanford University in Northern California. You might imagine that robots would dance in jerky, mechanical ways.…

Biographic Stephen Schwartz (1948–) Songwriter, Wicked Since opening on Broadway in 2003, Wicked has been wickedly successful. This Wizard of Oz-inspired musical won three Tony Awards and has broken box office records in many of the theaters in which it has run, including at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City. Winnie Holzman wrote the script, or book, for the musical. The story centers on the early relationship of Elphaba (later the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (later Glinda the Good Witch). It’s loosely based on the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. But the driving force behind Wicked was songwriter Stephen Schwartz. He discovered the novel while on vacation and realized that with some changes it…

NEW CONTEST New Contest: The Muse Theater There is a full house tonight, and the stage is lit with a single spotlight—on you! What would you perform onstage, if you could do anything you wanted? Sing, dance, act in a play, clown around, or something else? Or maybe you’re backstage, writing, directing, building props, or lighting the stars? Whatever your role in the Muse Theater, tell us about it in words or pictures. We’ll be waiting to showcase some of our favorites on opening night. CONTEST RULES 1. Your contest entry must be your very own original work. Ideas and words should not be copied. 2. Be sure to include your name, age, and full address on your entry. 3. Only one entry per person, please. 4. If you want…

A Muse reader recently found this page full of creative ideas for a musical and sent it to us. It was all crumpled up on the floor just outside a classroom. Who could have written it? Can you believe someone would throw this away? Octopus: The Musical “Oh My! Octopi!”? “Oh! My Octopi!”? “Sing, Cephalopod, Sing!” “Eight Arms and All Yours: The Musical” ACT I SCENE 1 BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, WITH ROCKS HERE AND THERE. (THE WHOLE STAGE IS ONE GIANT TANK.) Ask Mia to ask Cirque how to do this. Black lights would be cool! Octopus “Haoyu” enters stage left and swims gracefully across to stage right. Somehow, we sense he is feeling vulnerable. We also realize he is on a quest. ** Remind Angelo to start making…