From stick figures to reality, continued….

I posted a while ago a snapshot from one of my sketch books, crudely drawn stick figures in what I had in my mind’s eye for one of the performance pieces I am building for SEAF. Now my goal, as I attempt to take these ideas from sketch book to reality is to create things that I have never seen before, things that make experienced riggers pause and ask, “Can this even be done?”

Ambitious? Who me?

While ambitious, I’m not going to be foolish and do things that can’t be done or worse might work, but only at great risk to my bottoms. Rather, I have taken these performances in small bites, from sketch to prototype to mock up to eventually live persons in rope. Last night, after weeks of testing out hardware, trials with various ties and finally assembling the performance truss, the sketch.. the idea that took shape in my deviant brain one night while laying naked next to my lover and admiring the supple curve of her hip… became real.

At first I was not sure, the hardware still needs a few tweaks, but damn if the two lovely ladies who volunteered to be in the piece were not the best gals you could ask for. Working with me, providing feedback as we tweaked the ropes and placement of things then… then as things began to gel, they began to flow with the rigging, gracefully bending and twisting as the experimental hardware I designed for the piece proved itself more than capable of the job. Then, then dear readers it happened, one of the girls gracefully swept herself into an inverted position, hands and hair flowing as she spun in a graceful, slow arc.

It worked; the bad stick figures were now two lovely and talented girls gliding by in what I could only describe as painfully elegant.

This is going to be amazing.