In Summer 2018 I joined Artist, Adrianne Wortzel, to help develop new expressions for a MekaMon robot named Don. This was an innovative project as the expressions were being built without any programming via an iOS app. While I was originally brought to help with the movement aspect it soon became clear I could help in a diverse number of waves ranging from creative direction, project management and stakeholder management. The result was that in under 3 months we shipped a dynamic proof of concept our film, The Sentient Thespian.
Kira with the Wen at CRR.
Movement Language
One of my favorite parts of this work was the collaborative process of creating a movement language. A fellow performer/choreographer, Thomas Sommo and I worked together to find movements in both my body and the robots that would create a larger narrative. Thomas worked with the Wen, a large robotic arm at CRR, to choreograph two sequences for the film. After some rehearsals finding a general sense of quality of movement and watching footage of the sequence I got to work building a language that would represent my conducting the robot.