The Dancing Congress Man

OK so I watched this video late at night before I went to bed on Wendsday last week.

http://vimeo.com/31262642

Then just before I got up from the computer my niece who is a dancer posted on Facebook this commnet "You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna!"
-The Birdcage. 

Then I went to sleep.

I had a dream that night where my niece and I were dancing together and she turned into a martinet dancing with wires coming out of the floor. I stopped dancing and looked through the floor and saw wires and gears and axles that were spinning and giving her movement.

I woke up and went AH AH!

Kinetic Dance Sculpture.

I will do the Maasai Jumping dance first. turn a crank and make the dancer jump up and down. 

It will be out of wood so it will not take to long to put together.Then I can work on Martha Graham next!! 


So it took me a while to figure out the mechanics of the whole thing. The Maasai Dance thing went out the window since it was too hard to pull off without a drill press.


On to plan B!

Here is how the magic is done.

Off set cam and axel with a Limberman out on the end of the stick.

From the front

So I worked out how to make the mechanics and now how to do a dance.

Well I watched 60 mins with the interview with Jack Abramoff and was shocked with what he had to say about Congress and how its just a money machine and getting worse.

So the next morning while walking the dog I came up with an idea to show a dancing Congress Man.

Here is how it developed.

All the bits and pieces 

I spent a lot of time doing design work and finally got everything together and cut out all the pieces as shown above. Then I spent a lot of time tweaking the design until I got it all to work the way I wanted.

Then took it all a part and started painting.

Here I have started to paint the Congress Man and the Money Bags

Close up of painted Congress Man

Here it is all together and ready to show

Here is the video of it in action.