Assignment/Activity Title-DADA Year—Class of 2021

Skill— Social and Ethical Awareness Portfolio Competency—Social Awareness

The DADA project is a project in which groups need to create a scene similar to that of the
era of DADA, in which performers performed art in nonsensical, irrational, and commonly
parodied political fashion. For my DADA Project, My Group and I created a skit regarding the
influence of the media on those who praise and denounce the Donald Trump Presidency. I played
Trump, and spoke towards the audience as though they were viewing the news. Two of my group
members played an anchor each, one MSNBC and one Fox News. The MSNBC anchor sat on the
left of the stage, symbolizing the progressivism of the network. The Fox News anchor sat on the
right of the stage, representing the right-wing bias in the corporation. Two viewers of each
respective network then got into a fight over their perspective of the news.
This project allowed me to reflect on my social awareness when it comes to the news. It
reminds me not to believe everything I hear. Fox News is a fake news corporation, and it
constantly spreads Right-Wing conspiracy and falsities; however, many people treat it as though
it is reliable. In the future, I know that I will need to be sure that where I am getting my information
is not biased. I consider myself to be quite liberal, though I prefer that my news to be unbiased. I
personally view CNN as my first news source, and I usually leave it on during the day even when I
am not watching television.
I learned that sometimes, as an actor, you need to take up roles that you don’t agree with. I
do not like Donald Trump, and stepping into the role was very fun, as I was able to completely
parody the President. I inserted terrible grammar into my role as Trump to make the character
appear as ignorant, as though Trump doesn’t know what he is talking about (he doesn’t.) This is
an acting skill that I know that I will use the future, it will be used for nearly all roles. There is no
role that will exactly be Will Thorne, it will always be someone else.
The photo below is of myself and my group performing our DADA. I portray Donald Trump,
Oliver plays a Fox News viewer, Anna plays an MSNBC viewer, Katrina plays a Fox News anchor,
and Isabella plays an MSNBC anchor. If I could do this once more, I would no longer rely on my
phone as a script, and would rather write my script out on a piece of paper or type it and print it
out. I found out that I can be rather clever when it comes to including elements of ironic humor
into dialogue. I changed the way I wrote Trump’s dialogue to appear as though I was Trump, using
words such as ‘bigly’ and ‘youge.’ I look forward to doing it with other characters in the future.
This project was a good first step to allowing me to write dialogue for people such as Trump, in a
comedic and ironic sense. This illustrates my strength as an actor, and was certainly an
improvement over the last time. I worked with my group to work on my skills as an actor. I put
myself into the role of Trump by researching different speaking characteristics and tactics used
by Trump. I had the challenge of using Trump’s voice in order to convey the dialogue. I couldn't
do the Trump voice or accent without coming across laughable.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Student Signature (Print here: ) Date

___________________________________________________________________________________
Teacher Signature Date