Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Course Outline

Traveller & Unraveller  L’esprit de L’escallier 

Welcome to the team!  We now have a collective blog and email address: 
travellerandunraveller.blogspot.com    travellerandunraveller@gmail.com     (passwords : staircase) 

This blog will be used to update work in progress, to suggest ideas, to ask questions and post 
photos and film.  This will mean that after this collaboration is over we will all have a beautiful 
document of our process. 

Design Session1 Narrative and Ownership   (Wednesday 13 
th 
 October) 

Ownership  
Connecting the group 
We are a creative collective and as such we must make this project belong to us as a group.  We 
will do this by fleshing out the story together today with a storyboard.  Over the next weeks and 
months we will merge the space between our disciplines – co-creating, problem solving and 
diving into the abyss of interactive costume and theatre… 

Narrative   
Connecting the story and defining characters 
We will start the day by mapping out the story.  Together we will connect characters from 
one scene to the next…highlighting interactions along the way. 

Pep talk  
Lets make this work 
Find resources Tap strangers on the shoulder and ask! 
Technical Needs University Collaborators  
Pool contacts Many minds solve problems 
Let’s be Problem solvers  
Researchers, making discoveries Be Fearless & Bold 

Questions 
Lets anticipate all eventualities 
What don’t we have? Skills, Facilities, Contacts…make a list on the wall 
Where do we access them? Universities, Workshops, Shops, Markets, Websites 
What skills do we have?  

Documentation 
Lets make this project take us all places 
Webpage Ongoing blog updates by team  
Photos Lets all take pictures of work in progress 
Documentary film Lets capture the process and outcomes on film 

Mood Slides 
Lets make this work 
Di and Jen will present slides that capture the look and feel of production - Robert Lepage, 
Michel Gondry, Music videos etc…   

 Storyboard Group Excercise 
Fleshing out the story and developing the characters and interactions that link them 
 Narrative Make a large visual map of the story 
 Interactions What interactive props lead one character or situation to the next? 
Problem solve 
 What is missing? 

Doccument, document, doccument 
Map your research experience using, paper and pencil, photos and film.  Upload onto the 
blog. 

Group homework (week 1):  
Think of the miniscule details that capture each character – emotions, sounds, smell, shape, 
colour, environment, architecture and movement.  This inspiration will be captured digitally and on 
paper. Later it will be pasted onto our collective character mood-boards.  In the meantime, 
continue problem solving with plot.   

Group homework (week 2): 
Consider the interactions that need to exist in every character’s costume.  Lets write a list of 
interactions that are needed to take us right the way through the performance.   How can one 
event lead to another through manipulation of the wearable interface?  How can a skirt become 
flip up to become clouds for example?  Think of costume as clothing, expression of character, 
prop, backdrop, lighting and storytelling device. 
Design Session 2 Interactions and body sketching (Wednesday 27th October) 

Characters  
What characters do we have an affinity to? 
Today we will critically examine the characters we have developed.  What elements work?  What 
do not?  We will consider their personality, their movements (fast slow heavy light etc…), their 
sounds and their colours 

Interactions  
What characters do we have an affinity to? 
We will look at our list of interactions and start acting them out and testing them on our bodies.  
Together we will work out how one interaction might lead to another.  What materials will enable 
this to happen?  At the end of this session, you will all be aligned a series of interactions to work 
on. 

Doccument, document, doccument 
Map your experience using, paper and pencil, photos and film.  Upload onto the blog. 

Group Homework (week3):  
Make technical sketches of your interactions.   
Consider – materials, facilities and skills needed to make this happen 
Gather the materials that you will need to build fast-prototypes in Session 3… Design Session 3 – Body sketching at the Cochrane  (Friday 29th 
h 
 October) 

Body sketching in the theatre 
Today we will test our interactive ideas in the theatre.  We will fast prototype our 
concepts on the bodies of dancers.  You must all come equipped with cheap materials 
that will allow you to build concepts on a large scale.  Consider using:  Lycra, calico, 
cardboard, balloons, clothes hangers, pegs, clips, masking tape…you get the picture… 

Engineer 
We will try to have an engineer present for this workshop in case we have technical 
queries.  Lets be realistic with technology and only incorporate it in a simple manageable 
way… 

Doccument, document, doccument 
Map your experience using, paper and pencil, photos and film.  Upload onto the blog. 

Group Homework (week 4) 
Finish your designs and considering silhouettes, interactions, materials and interactions 

Design Session 4 Group critique show and test (Wednesday 3rd November) 
Show and tell - Testing on our bodies - What’s not working? 
Finalise Designs- silhouettes, interactions and tech-specs 
Finalise Materials – What materials do we need? 
Finalise Facilities – Lets find them 
Finalise Skills  – eg.  Laser cutting or video editing 

Design Session 5 Technical Sketches (Wednesday 10th November) 
Textile Maquettes  
Costume Toilles 
Functioning interactive prototypes 
Visualizations – design images and technical drawings 
Homework problem solving:  
Information transferral 
How can we give this information to your peers?  Who needs to make what? 

Week 6 Information Transferal (Wednesday 17th November) 
You must be responsible for communicating your ideas to the makers. 
How can you get the effects you desire? 
Break down costume element into modules and allocate to the right person. 

 TBC… 






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