Andy's Hat

     An original music, show control driven, digital multimedia dance piece done in collaboration with choreographer Dr. Darwin Prioleau as my MFA thesis project. A place where creativity, technology, and collaboration met and flourished.

This was one truly amazing experience. People in theatre talk a lot about collaboration but I have never experienced it like this before. The choreographer and I worked together closely from the beginning. We developed an excellent working rapport that soon became intuitive.  Dance rehearsals started before I had composed the piece in its entirety. This created the opportunity to attend several formative dance rehearsals while still in the process of writing the music. I was able to talk to the dancers and watch how they moved. I saw my music come to life in such a way that inspired me to begin to write both for and because of the dancers.

    The digital media projections were a result of finally getting to do a truly creative project with my friend, fellow graduate assistant, and lighting designer Erika Kissam. We sat for hours at two side by side networked computers searching for, editing, and compositing video and still images.

    Costumes and set design happened at a similar pace to the creating of the music. Both designers received musical updates as they occurred. The result was a coming together of creative energies that was an educational and expressive experience for student and teacher alike.

    My role was that of project conception, musical composition, digital audio production and editing, digital video media conception and editing, SFX show control set up and programming, and project coordination. SFX was used to playback recorded video, live video switching, audio playback, and triggering light cues. All tech elements except flying scenery and the fog machine were coordinated through SFX with MIDI time code. (with a more sophisticated fly system and DMX on the fog machine, I could have done those, too.) 

    You can read more about Andy's Hat  in Professor Stephen M. Zapytowski's article entitled Combined Media Theory starting on page 48 of the Winter 2005 edition of Theatre Design and Technology.

Megan does iconic bow and arrow at her first entrance. The stage right screen is an mpg, the stage left screen is live reenforcement.

Dancers with abstract digital media. These are an amalgam of several video loops. The lights are cued by SFX show control.

The journey just before the lightning storm.

Dancers with "light rays" effected recorded video. The dancers on the screen move a fraction of a second before the dancers on the floor.

The dancers provided their childhood photos for me to mix into the recorded projections.

Live video reenforcement. All switching was done by SFX show control.

Andy considers his past.

The playground scene.