Author: patrick
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Bard on the Beach
My ongoing work with Bard on the Beach in Vancouver over the years has challenged me to compose music and design sound for a tent. Subwoofers beneath audience members, speakers pointed in all manner of places, inside and outside the tent…actors performing instruments, rhythmic voice and choral work using the text as inspiration. All have…
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Virtual Stage
The Virtual Stage is an interdisciplinary theatre company pushing the boundaries of what is and what is not reality. Click here for a short film co-produced by the Virtual Stage for the Vancouver Short Film Festival. The stills below are from our first collaboration. Future collaborations include a combination of live theatre with VR exploring…
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Dancers Dancing
Dancers Dancing/Various selections/2005-2015. I’ve created many compositions working with choreographer and educator Judith Garay. A trailer for Fine Line: Twisted Angels can be seen here. Hypersonic speakers directing music to specific locations in the space, infrared triggering of projection and lighting. Playful, dynamic, and evocative, the track below is one of several to accompany dancers…
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Studies in Motion
Studies in Motion/Electric Company Theatre/2006-2010. Five separate productions based on the life of Edweard Muybridge. 120 Cues. Over 75 originally composed works. Video highlights here. Compositional highlights available here on iTunes:
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Reflections on Disrupting a Panel Presentation
Several audience members at Press Start: Culture, Industry and Innovation in Japanese Gaming picked up early on in my panel presentation on Game-Based Learning that this wasn’t going to be your typical presentation. That’s because embedded in the design of my 15-minute panel presentation were a number of points of interaction. I’ve been reflecting on conference…
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Teaching Prototypically
As a teacher, embracing the values of prototyping has meant a solid commitment, understanding and breakdown of its underlying components that I renew through continuing my professional practice. From that practice, I believe that underlying assumptions of prototyping need to be reviewed and re-constructed with learners each time any prototyping process is facilitated. How else…
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Choice and the Role of the Coach in Presentation
The motivation to write this week is that I’ve seen too many novice presenters who have been turned off from presenting because of negative and/or unhelpful feedback they have received in the past. Rushing to the defence of the critic, it’s only human nature to yell “speak louder” or “I can’t hear you”. However, presenting…
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‘Learning Through Error’ when Solving Problems
In last week’s article ‘Improvisation Principles and Techniques for Design’, Gerber (2007), highlights five areas in which “improvisation applies to design work”. I asked learners to pick one and discuss how it might already apply to their own design process and why. I decided to tally the range of responses to see if there was…
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Impromptu Pre-Write on Improv Class 1 (time box = 15 minutes)
I’m sure I’m not the only one to have reflected on a course plan in writing prior to the class being deployed. At times when we reflect freely there doesn’t have to be sound reasoning for the impulse. Writing sometimes frees us to allow new intel to emerge. This is one of the benefits of…
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An attempt to make the outline for an Improv course even longer
Creative and Collaborative Challenges are coming…… Interdisciplinary Improvisation is not your typical course nor does it adhere to the literal constraints of a course outline. No matter how well I pre-organize and communicate the 13 sessions that you’ll experience in advance, as soon as we interact, the outline will change. There’s a reason for this…
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Rapid Prototyping Techniques @ the CDM
The videos below represent two different ways that I’ve attempted to capture typical rapid prototyping processes that I’ve facilitated in my Interdisciplinary Improvisation course and in real-world Projects courses at the Master of Digital Media Program in Vancouver. In my first prototype, the photo and video documentation attempt to show more of a collage of…
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Rapid Prototyping & the Performing Arts
Facilitating a rapid prototyping process at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts with Small Stage this past week has been a rewarding and challenging experience. The varied talents of dancers, choreographers, musicians, composers, songwriters, actors, triple threats, and teachers brought the lab to life in unexpected and brilliant extemporaneous works. The wondrous Cori Caulfied &…
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Reflections on Mentoring Projects 2015: V. 23
As the last semester came to a close, I too decided to perform the painful but rewarding activity that I’ve asked my students to do many times before: document a reflection of what I learned through mentoring projects. The more challenging part that I took on, is that I also wanted to make the reflection public. I’m balancing…
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Disrupting the Assumption of Collaboration
Why should we assume that collaboration means the same thing to different people? Is it enough to say that I’m a good collaborator without really defining what that means. We’ve all had different experiences so will likely define a good collaboration differently. One Solution One of the strategic exercises that I facilitate at the Master…
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Crowd Surfing Love @ the Centre for Digital Media
What better way for a brave group of Chinese students from the Communication University of China to start our fifth IDEA-X @ the Centre for Digital Media Program in Vancouver. Crowd Surfing is a fun and engaging way for learners to embody trust—to know what it feels like to support others who depend on you, and in turn to…
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Work with New Others…Often
It’s difficult advocating the unknown joys and perils of collaborating with others when I’d rather talk about the steady times I continue to have with familiar and aligned collaborators. The truth is we never know what the outcome of a collaboration is going to be. Some of us have the luxury of developing collaborative partnerships that last…
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Let Learners Influence the Design
If we are not in the classroom for the learners then should we be in there at all? The answer may seem obvious. And yet, what does it mean to be fully present and engaged for the learner? From my experience teaching for the past 15 years across learning environments, it means that you need…
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Assume Learners Are Not Empty Headed
I’ve seen so many teachers think that learners need to be broken down. In order to understand what you are teaching they have to be re-trained from scratch and moulded afresh. This is not only dangerous since it assumes that you have the authority and the wisdom of a guru to do so, but I’ll…
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Disrupting the Classroom
This video shot at the Masters of Digital Media Program by learners who over the years have contributed to the disruption of teaching and learning. The video gives you a taste of different methods of engaging learners in order to promote a teaching and learning environment that is collaborative and self-reflexive. A free download of an excerpt of…
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Improvisation & Communication
A short video detailing the advantages improvisation has to support communication in collaborative activities. Shot with the 8th cohort at the Master of Digital Media Program in Vancouver, Canada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFKbdLVjOLI