From STEM to STEAM

Obstacles and Opportunities in Integrating Art with  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

(Copyright Ezra Niesen)

I’ve worked in theatre for 28 years.  Theatre is the art of recreating the entire world, and variations on it, and making it believable to audiences.  It brings all other art forms together.  Film is the art of theatre in a different medium.

When I started reading about evolutionary psychology 12 years ago, I soon realized that the most important concepts of evolutionary psychology have been the founding principles of modern theater for about a century.  Constatin Stanislavski, a Russian actor and director, pioneered a psychological approach to theatre beginning in the 1880s, inspired in part by Charles Darwin’s work.  (more…)