Due: May 4, 2019

For your final project you will work with a classmate as a team to create a live, public performance using cloth and robotics. This project is a realized performance for which you made a proposal in a previous assignment. Your team’s stage show will develop over the last seven weeks of the semester into a culminating collaborative concert with the Exploded Ensemble.

Performance Context

We will perform our final show on May 4 in the Kresge Theater in CFA in conjunction with the Exploded Ensemble. Our aim is that the visual composition of the fabric pieces work in a dialogue with the music, neither existing as visual rendition of the music (e.g. ‘music video’) or the music as a voicing of the visuals (e.g. ‘soundtrack’).

We will also be scaling up our technical hardware from the lab to a stage setting, including lighting and possibly fans. We will have limited access to the Kresge stage on the day of the performance, so we anticipate using a portable set of rigging based on C-stands. There is some potential for using the box seats in Kresge in addition to the stage. You will have access to more motor channels and digitally-controlled stage uplighting.

Upcoming Deadline

As stated in the proposal assignment, our aim is that each project be completely prototyped and moving by April 9 so the final weeks can focus on choreography, improvisation practice, and minor technical revisions.

Assessment Rubric

A project of this scale is complex and utilizes many of your skills to actualize it. We have developed this rubric to help communicate the elements that we believe are important for your project and for your learning from this experience:

Concept/Rigor: The team challenged itself to cultivate the concept within the project as part of the process of becoming more precise with the project’s goal and outcome. The concept matured over time and showed qualities such as: being resolved, articulating an idea, posing questions, follow-through with an intuited idea, and general development as the project progressed.

Experimentation/Risk-taking/Play: The maker’s willingness to take risks (in composition, formal choices, materials, and content) are evident. Also important is the team’s openness to new ideas, chance occurrences, and feedback and suggestions from peers and instructors throughout the creative process.

Development/Execution: The project demonstrates the team’s investment and effort in developing the initial idea into a realized work. Samples and prototypes, explorations with techniques and materials, and other forms of research were an integral part of the process. The resulting material and behavioral elements of the project were fully considered, and the finished project transcends the elemental parts used. The choices made within the project support the concept. Enough time was invested into iterations of the project to arrive at a matured, engaging resolution within the project and its elements (looks, sounds, movements).

Performance/Execution: The project demonstrates the team’s careful consideration of the ways in which the work is presented at the public performance (including site, location in space, relationship to the viewers, relationship to musicians, etc). The team is present and focused throughout the set-up, performance, and strike of the performance. During the performance, the team remains focused, fluid, and improvises smoothly through any surprises or “mistakes”. The team is supportive of other team’s performances and assists where they are able if needed.

Management/Production: The team internally functions with clear communication and mutual respect. The team is on schedule with ordering parts, meeting personal deadlines, finishing mechanisms, producing sculptural elements, and resolving software. The team is disciplined about its own weekly progress and allows for time for iteration and revision. The team clearly communicates with other classmates and instructors.

Documentation/Reflection: The team creates a thoughtful reflection and documentation of their project. This includes photos and video of the finished project as well as the process. The reflection includes a thoughtful statement that describes the project and also a discussion about the process, what they learned, what went well, what they would do differently, and what does this project inspire next.

Here is a link to the rubric spreadsheet.