Origami Documentary: Between the Folds

I. Introduction

Host: Even if you never ______making paper airplanes, it’s possible to triumph in this art form. Folding paper squares will transform you and the world around you.

Man: Origami is a ______art form.

Host: After abandoning her former work, independent producer Vanessa Gould felt a deep resonance with those who had forged unlikely careers as modern-day paper folders: a theoretical mathematician, an intrepid scientist, and 8 other artists who transform 2 ______into 3. In our modern world full of fast-moving, glittering technology, what is the never-ending______with a square piece of paper?

Man with Glasses: even the galaxy, sort of wheeling around and folding itselfover ______as it goes around. That looks like mountains and valleys for the reason that mountains and valleys go through the same process. Even DNA is folded. You and I are born from folding.

Host: It is said that when Michael Angelo stood before a block of marble, he could already see his ______waiting inside…

They’re sculptors and scientists working in the shadows between art and math, like alchemists bringing beauty to the ______.

No scissors, no ______, no glue.

II. Vocabulary exercise: look up these words in a bilingual dictionary and write a definition in your native language. Read the sentences on page 2, Artist 1 and Artist 2, to make sure you choose the correct meaning!

1. beat (v.) : 4. medium (n.) :

2. cotton (n.) : 5. caricature (n.):

3. pulp (n.) : 6. brew (v.) :

Artist 1

beat abaca and cotton into pulp

(Abaca = hemp, a plant from which fiber is made, related to banana plant.)

6 foot = 185cm

The first batch of paper I made…

Is the only origami artist in the world who also makes the medium itself

Wilbur = name of the pig in famous book “Charlotte’s Web.”

Artist 2– Eric

In a small farmhouse outside Paris

Have a coffee, let his ideas brew with his mind.

caricature-like style

______

Artist 3– Robert

I try to be fairly ______.

I want it to have the______and shape.Now to achieve that realism,it doesn’t come by ______. You don’t find that by trial and error. You have to work pretty hard to get that detail in. And so, I use mathematical and geometric ideas to achieve this goal of a beautiful, folded shape.

Host: Robert takes the ______to music even further to help talk about his work. He even names his pieces by Opus number.

What you can accomplish is strongly______by mathematical laws.In music, theharmonic ratios between the notes and ______, and in origami, the laws of paper.

The Father - Yoshizawa

1. ____ Paper first became sculpturein the hands of a single man in Japan -

a self-taught man, ahead of his time.

2. ____ abandoned a factory job

3. ____ the first to keep his paper moist while working

4. ____ he made ends meet by working odd jobsand even selling soup door-to-door

5. ____ His seed fell on fertile ground.

A. quit

B. a living

C. productive

D. more advanced

E. wet

After Listening – for discussion

  • Who are some other famous people you think were ahead of their time?

Do you know anyone personally?

  • What do you think sentence 5 means? Can you think of another situation this phrase could be used for?

Robert asks the question ‘How many steps did it take to diagram?’

  • Is diagram a verb or noun? What does it mean?

Read the following and listen to this section of the video:

“… and they’d take it to a convention and show “here’s my beetle.” And people would say, “Hmm, how can I top that?” And so the next year, they’d come back – “Well, here’s my spider. Your beetle had six legs, but my spider’s has 8 legs.”

  • What was happening in the ‘bug wars’?