Bat Wing and Body Acoustic

22Feb10

For the final week of the Body Acoustic course, the assignment was to design and construct a prop and perform with it. I took this as the perfect jump-start to building a full-scale mock-up of the bat wing model I made early in the semester.

Here’s a very early mock-up to test the channel at the top to guide the pull cord.

This little model was developed into the Bat Wing I built for the Body Acoustic. It was inspired by the Loie Fuller work I’ve looked at as well as my earlier studies.

Process and prototypes:

Draping fabric for wing. Silly to do standing up. Completed on floor.

Prototype blocking at end of sandwich board

Final configuration of arms and bushing within sandwich board

Cord channel between sandwich boards

Prototype 1 for joint sandwich board. Final is a tapered version of this.

Prototype 2 for joint sandwich board

Here’s an excerpt from my improvisational performance with the wing.

The Body Acoustic was an amazing course and I’m so thankful that Leslie Van Duzer and Dana Reitz allowed me to informally join the course. As I said to them, I learned so much from participating (for it can’t be said that I merely “took” this class), but I probably won’t be able to articulate what it is that I’ve learned for another 30 years. So check back with me in a few decades and I’ll tell you what I learned.

Filed under: Dance/Performance, Mechanical Movement, Musings   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: architecture, Body Acoustic, Dana Reitz, dance, deployment, fabric, Leslie VanDuzer, models, movement, performance