Traverse is a robotic puppet show about automation and disability with puppets made out of cardboard, and, made by you!
Every presentation of Traverse will start with a community workshop, before, the models built by those workshop participants, will culminate a performance.
Audience construction includes cutting, assembling and decorating cardboard, motors, batteries and grommets, building off the magnetic forces that move solenoids and motors, and, intersecting with physics through the mechanical advantage of connecting a motor’s shaft to a (larger) wheel with a rubber band. Explanation of the circuitry and science controlling both the animatronic characters (built out of remote controlled solenoids) as well as environmental origins will be presented and discussed.
The space dims and lights focus on the space of the show. In the short performance, Rachel and Ranger X, one walking upright and one in a motorized wheelchair, meet in a park. Rachel (inspired by biologist Rachel Carson and actress Tatianna Lee) is blocked by a fallen tree branch. A silly ranger attempts to help her but shows his misunderstandings of people with disabilities. He assures her that he has called the right department to move the log and they will arrive in three hours. Not accepting that answer, Rachel proposes a means by which they can work together to use his silly inventions to benefit them both.
The show ends with an interactive question and answer about both building the cardboard puppets, programming the solenoids (without a computer) and advocacy for one’s abilities.
The cardboard characters directly mirror the cardboard models that participants have built. The workshop is highly engaging, relevant and interactive and the short performance shows an important journey, and, suggests that technology, without human facilitation, can be problematic, though our show is playful, farcical and light.
