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title: 20220801 TDM Support designLab
tags: [projects]

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tags: projects
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# 20220801 TDM Support designLab

## Fall TDM Support (notes from meeting with TDM folks)
### MDF Fall support:
* Documentation of the three production studios, especially capturing some of the two theatrical productions to add to what we have from HDP last year
    * Contacting the leaders of the two theatrical productions to see if process-documentation assignments or activities might fit with their visions for the course (something akin to the interviews of students Jessi performed for HDP last year or documentation of rehearsals, etc).
        * TDM 90AR: TDM Puppet Production Studio (Kate Brehm)
            * link to Kate's site: https://www.katebrehm.com/#intro
        * TDM 90BR: Spring Production Studio
* Work to support the 8 TDM students performing senior theses in the coming year, aiding either with process-documentation or with creating a web-based portfolio of these projects
* Developing a “lookbook” or “menu” of options for Learning Lab support that we could present sometime this term in preparation for Spring 2023 courses. This might include:
    * a model of how student interviews can prompt metacognitive reflection of what they’ve learned for the course (while also telling the story of the course to the broader Harvard community)
    * ideas for multimedia portfolio assignments that the Bok Center can support
    * ideas for integrating other modes of process-documentation into a course in tandem with either of the above to create a “story of the course” (which could also help students develop portfolios)
    * ideas for using Bok Center support to generate media for use in TDM productions and classes (like the videos and images Jessi created for HDP projections, buttons and lobby installations)

# course information from my.harvard
The language of puppetry is steeped in visual and physical storytelling. Inanimate objects become living beings in a world where anything can come to life. Students of this course will learn to tell stories through the physically dynamic practice of puppeteering. Simultaneously, we will consider dramaturgically what types of story and themes are best suited to this medium.  

Classes will consist of short discussions followed by rehearsal for a puppet production of The Poacher, a short story by science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin. All students will puppeteer in the production, which will include multi-operator bunraku-style, tabletop, and shadow puppets as well as a full-body costumed environment puppeteered collectively as an ensemble. A professional design team will share with the class their processes of connecting each discipline to the unique needs of a puppet show: lighting that avoids human beings, sound which drives emotional tenor, costumes that are also puppets, and scenery which itself performs.

The Poacher places its main character in the same realm occupied by Sleeping Beauty. Our young protagonist has a difficult home life and spends most time poaching mushrooms from the king’s forest. Their curiosity is peaked by a strange hedge beyond which they discover Sleeping Beauty’s kingdom in a state of suspended animation. In a twist, instead of waking the princess, our protagonist decides to become permanently lost and live among the half-awake until their end.

This story plays in the boundary between animate and inanimate, sleeping and waking, real and imaginary, ignorance and knowledge. These themes, most relevant to the practice of puppetry, are also precisely the ones outlined by Roger Caillois in his text on insect mimicry. The spoken narration of The Poacher will be interlaced with comments from Caillois on the benefits of disappearing into one’s surroundings.TDM's Fall 2022 Production will be taught by movement director and artist Kate Brehm. TDM production studios (TDM 90AR/BR/CR/DR) frame and involve participation in Theater, Dance & Media’s twice yearly professionally directed and designed productions. The preponderance of time for this course will be dedicated to the rehearsal process and performances, where the integration of theory and practice, and theater, dance, and media take place. Students will meet with the course head for seminar discussions and studio work at designated times to examine the entire performance process through a creative lens.


## DesignLab Notes
* bare minimum - we'll do some shoots of the class/sessions
* but we'd love to help out on activities more targeted to helping students learning

### reflecting on Jessi's HDP support/brainstorming
* what could be pulled out and used for Puppet Theatre?
    * metacognitive goals and interview sequences 
        * students being able to speak about rationale / developing their grammar
    * artist's statement
        * why are we needed? they could do them without us, just assign essays. so what is the LL's value add? how can we make it better than it normally would?
        * could this exist as a web gallery? what would be something that would tie it into puppet theatre? could puppets say the artists statement?
    * puppet show about puppet show...
    * gallery tour of puppets in the space - walking around and reflecting on the spot (this could easily have a web-based component)
    * different workshops around making
    * person on green screen as prototyping space + sets can be alive!
    * the documentation of dance is part of the dance itself - can this be legitimately paralled to puppets?
    * using lighting/green screen as a way to shift between the body exercises and sentence from description about hiding the body (green screen suits!!!!)
        * green screen for students doing movements/theatre body exercises + gifs
        * green screen suits for hiding the body
    * sound? jessi into production/experience design
    * pitching to TDM turning each of the 4 LL table set ups into a stage/world prototyping space
        * could involve soundtracks/music launching


### things to get MPAs/LLUFs to prototype/make
* 1
    * stage craft (workshop in the studio)
    * sets can be alive
    * 4 LL table set ups into a stage/world prototyping space
    * green screen deposits + involve soundtracks/music launching
    * lighting
* 2
    * puppet show about the puppet show that IS the artist statement/reflection piece (we could construct a really cool set/studio/stage to capture that)
    * small video studios that we've used to support TDM in the past and we could easily capture small scale puppet shows
* 3
    * gallery of puppets (web-based or in-person)
    * web based companion(1 page visual essay)
    * single object + annotation
    * live low-stakes puppet rationale with studio boject (learn formal + technical)
* could also send over a LL list of additional LL support we could offer in addition to the above more crisp ideas
    * green screen suits
    * gifs

#### delving into #3^
gallery of puppets (web-based or in-person)
* live gallery of camera parts
* using camera parts on overhead as puppets & annotate them
* prototype of a live event that happens once OR as the first step towards having media that could go in a web-based gallery
* live low-stakes puppet rationale with studio object - practicing rationale as people walk around and ask you about it
* then you have to a more documentation focused performance with a more polished rationale + using cards to annotate with the overhead
* (maybe start out with something less serious/more whimsical to loosen folks up)
* deliverable - media

## action steps
* build the above by middle of next week so we can write something substantial to pitch Kate by end of next week
    * Thursday and Friday this week are two big days to really work on this (with MPAs)

## more on kate
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/225692776?h=8366d82c31" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/225692776">Discrepancies, meditation 1 - short section</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user1572297">Kate Brehm</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>


from a review of Brehm's work: 

"The size of this cafe is a puppet. The triangle between my eye, yours, and the coffee cup is a puppet. The mass of the table is a puppet. The division of space is a puppet. The rate at which time flows is a puppet. This is how Kate Brehm thinks when she thinks about puppets.”
- Daniel Maidman 