Back in July of this year at the Heinlein Centennial, I watched with delight as Jeanne Robinson was finally given the opportunity to work with dance in free fall. I expect that her flight on December 30th of this year will enable her to incorporate real experiences, both physical and emotional, into the framework of the Stardance Movie project.

She was kind enough to give an interview to us at Urbanagora about her flight and movie:


TET: Twenty years ago, you were scheduled to fly on the space shuttle. What kind of training and preparation would you have had to make for that flight?

JR: I never got close enough to my departure date to find out in any detail. After the first civilian was killed, the program ended.

TET: For this flight, how are you and your dancer, Kathleen McDonagh, preparing, physically and mentally?

JR: We’re preparing on many levels. I'm not only working closely with Kathleen, but also with producer/co-director, James Sposto, who'll be filming Kathleen during our flight. Before designing Kathleen’s short movement sequence, I’ve had to familiarize myself with every aspect of the environment we’ll be working in. Several people from Zero-G Corporation have been assisting us. Their help has informed the shape of the choreography and the direction of the shoot. For example, we’ll be positioned in front of the bulkhead of the first of three sections. Each section holds up to 10 passengers. It’s likely we’ll be sharing our section with a few other passengers.

Despite all of our prep, the three of us remain keenly cognizant of the fact that anything can happen during our flight. In an instant we may have to adapt our plans, and improvise. For example we’ve been told the average duration of the 15 parabolic arcs is 25 to 30 seconds. But I’ve watched footage of a flight whose arcs only averaged 16 to 18 seconds.

TET: Will you actually be doing motion-capture photography during the flight, or merely getting the "feel" of free-fall? In either case, what actions will you be performing up there?

JR: Our plans don’t include motion-capture photography. Kathleen and I plan on simply experiencing the kinesthetics of microgravity — enjoying the feel, for the first several arcs. The experience will inform the choreography I’ve been imagining and writing about for years. But since no sequence can exceed 20-30 seconds, and some may be as short as 16 seconds, we’re quite limited in what we can accomplish. We hope to do more, but we are prepared to settle for “getting the feel” and capturing some shots and short sequences with a HiDef video camera. This footage will be used to help model the animation and fx for the final film, and the footage will be useful for publicity and fund-raising.

TET: The flight itself--are you just doing this one on December 30th? How long will you actually be in free-fall? Is this the same plane that was used for Stephen Hawking?

JR: This will be our one and only flight (until serious funding kicks in); we were given a single pair of free seats, and they cost thousands, and James purchased an additional seat. We will fly a total of 15 parabolic arcs—three of them at 1/3 gee, and 1/6, with the rest at zero-g. And each arc can vary from 15-35 seconds, depending on the weather, among other things. I don’t know if this will be the same plane Sir Stephen flew, but we’re flying with the same company, Zero-G Corporation.

TET: How do you plan to integrate the experience of this flight into your movie?

JR: We’ll have to wait and see what fate gives us. As I said, I’m prepared to settle for some promotional images, and hoping to make some actual choreographic discoveries and shooting decisions. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some fabulous footage to edit into a short film. Fingers crossed!

TET: On your film's sponsorship page you talk about how "the Stardance Experience combines artistic and humanistic themes with the backdrop of science." In my case, you're preaching to the choir, but for the rest of Urbanagora's readership--Why is this important?

JR: If mankind does not go to space (and soon!) it will die, sooner or later. But we won’t go there if it doesn’t seem like a human place: to draw us, it’s going to need art and culture, to help us express it, and to inform how we’re going to shape it together. Dance is the art form best suited to space conditions (and language-free), and film is the medium presently best suited to get that news to the general public. We need to show them that space is not only a place for test pilots and scientists. It’s really the next frontier — the next challenge for us to overcome in our evolutionary path upward.

TET: A lot of the financing so far for your film's been coming from individual investors. Do you think that the publicity from your flight is likely to open more corporate and agency doors?

JR: I certainly hope so. More and more, these days, the smart money has its eyes on the stars. There are about to be trillions of dollars made in orbit....and the people who go there to work or to play will need entertainment and aesthetics. One such effort is being master-minded by business entrepreneur, Robert Bigelow. His eight-year-old company, Bigelow Aerospace, is busy designing inflatable space habitats. He is trying to make low-earth-orbit destinations a necessity — the fulfillment of a life-long dream of getting humanity into space. He’s my kind of guy. I like the way he dreams. Check out the article about his effort in the November 2007 issue of WIRED.

TET: You've talked a lot in the past about your Buddhism and how it is an integral part of your life. Dancing in space has to be considered a truly transcendental experience. How does it relate to your faith and spirituality?

JR: I became a Buddhist at 25 when I read Suzuki Roshi’s book, ZEN MIND, BEGINNER’S MIND. As an artist I had learned to tolerate ambiguity, or not-knowing, in order to be open to the creative spirit. Reading Roshi’s teachings on “beginner’s mind” aligned with my wholehearted intention to approach my work freshly every day, in an effort to communicate an ultimately indescribable and unknowable mystery. Becoming a Buddhist reaffirmed what I already knew: the best way for me to serve the world was to integrate my visual insights into the physical act of making dances — a potentially mystical language beyond the reach of words.

Much like Zen itself, dancing in space has no boundaries.....no limits......no up or down. I hope that space’s unique conditions will help create art that leads toward human transcendence, that evolves us beyond what we’ve already seen, and that accelerates the process that forms art in the first place.

To hang in the center of the universe, surrounded by limitless space, is to arrive at the gateway to primordial knowledge. Stardance is a direct invitation to dream, dance, evolve and exemplify the best in humanity.

TET: After your flight, I'm sure that there'll be a great deal to discuss. May we talk again on this subject early next year?

JR: By all means. Immediately after we return home, we’ll be busy collaborating on a press release about the experience to send it out with still images, and at least a little raw footage. If we’re lucky enough to get some fabulous footage of Kathleen, Jim and I will work on editing together a video presentation for investors and sponsors.

TET: Thanks a lot, Jeanne. Say hello to Spider for us.



I certainly want to repeat that thanks from all of us here at the blog. We'll be watching the papers, the Internet and your press releases for the full story at the end of next month.

For those who would like to read Spider and Jeanne's SF books that introduced the concept of zero-gravity dance for the first time, they're available from amazon.com in plenty of time for Christmas shopping. They're well worth the price--I still cry at the end of the first one, even after all these years.

Tom

Labels: future art, interviews, space, Tet