Imagination’s Door – Prop Design
December 2022
Celebrate Dance Academy (Arden Hills, MN) staged the premiere of a new Christmas dance and theatre performance titled “Remember” in December 2022. The cast entered imaginary dream worlds through a mysterious door presented to them by their collective imagination.
For this performance, a door was envisioned that would invite and draw the cast (and audience) into their dream worlds. Goals for the design were that the door would “glow” (side lighting hidden in door frames), would be cordless, and present a “look” specific to each imaginary world the cast would enter. Use of individually addressable LEDs offered the ability to create an animated transition in and out of each look.
The design was powered by a 12 Vdc battery feeding a 5 Vdc buck power supply. Actors controlled the door’s light scenes from switches hidden on the back of the door frame. The embedded design was implemented on a Teensy 4.1 processor using the FastLED software library.
Original conceptual design and embedded design / build / programming by Art Graf. Carpentry by Tom Varno. Artistic Director of Dance, Sarah Piper. Theatrical Director, Myndi Lawrence. Additional engineering consultation provided by Matt Scherfenberg, Greg Mrozek (Microchip), Jim Bucher (Cummins), Bryan Colby (Graco), and Jason Moyer.
Photos copyright Arthur Graf, Sarah Piper, and Celebrate Dance Academy.