Salon activities for Non-poets and dreamers

April 19, 2007 8:25 AM

We're holding a salon tomorrow (in the artsy sense of the word), and are looking for good activities to suggest for those who might not be blatantly artistic.

We'll be having a few poets and musicians come, but what can we suggest for those whoe might be 2-D artists, or those who don't consider themselves creative at all (which I think is a myth anyway). I'm considering things like Exquisite corpse type activites, but was hoping MeFites could give me more ideas...

posted by ikahime to media & arts (9 comments total)

How about providing supplies for people to make collages (paper, glue, cut up magazines, etc...) on either individual paper to hang or for one giant wall size collage? You could provide bongo drums (for some reason whenever someone is reading poetry and bongos are around someone feels the need to play on them). An improv poetry game could challenge 2 poets to create poems on the spot from cues by the audience (shout out topics or form). And of course the reading of mad libs is always a good "non-creative" way to get people engaged in the spirit of the night. You could have your writers make them up out of famous poets poems and hand them out. Offer a goofy prize to the funniest.
posted by jeffe at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2007

You could also have someone write a play and draft people in to perform all or some of the roles.
posted by jeffe at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2007

conversation topics? i feel like i remember something about salons often involving conversation about the interesting topics of the era.
posted by lgyre at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2007

might try an icebreaker board game. i'm a fan of apples-to-apples, but cranium might be ok, & there might be better ones out there.
posted by ejaned8 at 11:23 AM on April 19, 2007

Almost anyone can manage a decent (or hilariously terrible) haiku. A set of magnetic poetry might also be useful.

In art class in junior high, we expanded famous works of art. Get a postcard-sized copy of the mona lisa (or something you like better), and use a ruler to divide it into 1" squares. Then divide a huge piece of paper into the same number of squares, in the same alignment. Each person is assigned one or two squares to color in with cray-pas, crayons, markers, whatever you've got. They just fill their square with the same thing they see in that square on the postcard. Even the least-artistic among us could copy what was in a tiny little square, and we ended up with a huge (and pretty awesome-looking) piece of cooperative art.
posted by vytae at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2007

Oh, and you could also have people read poetry aloud, even if they didn't write it. Your public library is sure to have plenty of books of poetry, so you could bring home a stack and let people choose something to perform.
posted by vytae at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2007

I like jeffe's suggestions, and would add that making a pizza or a pie or even cookies or nachos together does wonders for breaking the ice and fostering groupiness...
posted by Dizzy at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2007

One time my study-abroad group did masks that represented themselves, which was a lot of fun.
posted by divabat at 5:39 PM on April 19, 2007

Great time was had by all. We got a one-act play together, some poets read their own work, and some great music. Thanks all for the suggestions. We'll be doing this again.
posted by ikahime at 6:37 PM on April 21, 2007