Well, we are now mid July 2015, and I am resuming posting on this Blog after a long silence.
The "Light Dreams" Show at Alys Stevens was not renewed for a third year, and we looked for other ways to keep going with the Double Take concept.
I started a new Blog Last year called "Frida, Pinche Vida", as we were attempting to put together a "Frida Show", as I put it at the time: "An Avant Garde Stage Show Based On Frida Kahlo's Life and Work, combining Acting, Dance, Music, Sound, Voices, Lighting, Multiple Live Video Feed, Motion Control, and Projection on Movable Sets".
That sounds ambitious, and it was. It would have required a permanent dark rehearsal space at least 30ft x 60 ft, with a 20 ft + ceiling to accommodate the set, some external funding, and serious commitment from a number of people: dancers, actors, narrator, stage manager, computer geek, etc... We couldn't find a space, and things just get complicated when more than two people are involved. That proved our downfall.
I have not given up the idea, and still hope to produce this show some day.
I also went on a tangent for a while with the idea of the Absurdist Theatre Cooperative, an idea fired up by my discovery of and subsequent enthusiasm for dead Polish Artist and Theatre Director Thaddeus Kantor. That did not even take off.
In the meantime, Mary and I have been playing on a small scale, and with a simpler set up. I built a 18ft x 10 ft wooden frame on which we stretch a vinyl projection screen, and use the long beam and one of the tall poles from our Light Dreams setup to hang lights, an overhead camera, and the projector:
A black panel is set up at a right angle and the camera is shooting sideways at the dancers:
We did a show at the Wine Loft for "Arts de Valentine" using this set up, promoting interactivity and audience participation. I don't have a video of the show, but these video were shot rehearsing and horsing around at CDF just before the show:
Mary has been using the overhead camera and a projector to do workshops for teachers.
I started a weekly Summer Cine Club in my patio, projecting on a new "waterproof" 16ft x 10 ft projection screen with grommets and a black border that stretches on a 1" conduit metal frame that is easier to set up than the wooden frame. But I prefer the later for stage shows because of the clean lines, and have plans to build a second identical frame to stretch a black background on if we ever do a stage show, so we have a neat closed corner self standing set that can be placed at an angle on stage.
We did a 3 day workshop recently at the YWCA with a group of young kids. I built a lighter weight wooden frame using left over 1" dowels and metal corners to stretch either a black or a green background that we used at the Y:
Besides teaching the kids and putting together a "show" for the last day:
Mary practiced and we got some interesting stage recordings of the computer generated video output:
The "Light Dreams" Show at Alys Stevens was not renewed for a third year, and we looked for other ways to keep going with the Double Take concept.
I started a new Blog Last year called "Frida, Pinche Vida", as we were attempting to put together a "Frida Show", as I put it at the time: "An Avant Garde Stage Show Based On Frida Kahlo's Life and Work, combining Acting, Dance, Music, Sound, Voices, Lighting, Multiple Live Video Feed, Motion Control, and Projection on Movable Sets".
That sounds ambitious, and it was. It would have required a permanent dark rehearsal space at least 30ft x 60 ft, with a 20 ft + ceiling to accommodate the set, some external funding, and serious commitment from a number of people: dancers, actors, narrator, stage manager, computer geek, etc... We couldn't find a space, and things just get complicated when more than two people are involved. That proved our downfall.
I have not given up the idea, and still hope to produce this show some day.
I also went on a tangent for a while with the idea of the Absurdist Theatre Cooperative, an idea fired up by my discovery of and subsequent enthusiasm for dead Polish Artist and Theatre Director Thaddeus Kantor. That did not even take off.
In the meantime, Mary and I have been playing on a small scale, and with a simpler set up. I built a 18ft x 10 ft wooden frame on which we stretch a vinyl projection screen, and use the long beam and one of the tall poles from our Light Dreams setup to hang lights, an overhead camera, and the projector:
We did a show at the Wine Loft for "Arts de Valentine" using this set up, promoting interactivity and audience participation. I don't have a video of the show, but these video were shot rehearsing and horsing around at CDF just before the show:
Mary has been using the overhead camera and a projector to do workshops for teachers.
I started a weekly Summer Cine Club in my patio, projecting on a new "waterproof" 16ft x 10 ft projection screen with grommets and a black border that stretches on a 1" conduit metal frame that is easier to set up than the wooden frame. But I prefer the later for stage shows because of the clean lines, and have plans to build a second identical frame to stretch a black background on if we ever do a stage show, so we have a neat closed corner self standing set that can be placed at an angle on stage.
We did a 3 day workshop recently at the YWCA with a group of young kids. I built a lighter weight wooden frame using left over 1" dowels and metal corners to stretch either a black or a green background that we used at the Y:
Besides teaching the kids and putting together a "show" for the last day:
Mary practiced and we got some interesting stage recordings of the computer generated video output:
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