Surfing in class
The tilting, rotating stage was custom built for an awards ceremony. Yang says it grew out of a surfing simulator he designed with four students as a class project last year. The simulator sits one meter above the floor and can move forwards and backwards, as well as tilt and rotate. It’s as much fun as its name suggests.
Yang explains that their “surfboard’s” design was derived from the “Stewart platform” familiar to industry. Such platforms have six extendable actuators arranged in triangles and are commonly used in flight simulators. Filmmakers even used one when shooting Life of Pi, attaching it to the bottom of the lifeboat to create wave-like motions.
“Neither the students nor I had ever built such a device. They spent two months developing designs, creating blueprints, welding, assembling, and testing.” Meanwhile, Yang used flyingV, a crowdfunding platform, to raise the money they needed to buy materials. The fundraising campaign ultimately brought in NT$230,000, which was put towards making their dream a reality.
When the machine was complete, the students invited their backers and their classmates in the theatrical design program to take part in a “surfing competition” in the lab. Attendees drew lots to participate in events that ranged from keeping a basket of ping pong balls balanced on one’s head to calling a girl or boyfriend to whisper sweet nothings, all naturally performed while “surfing.”
In the performing arts, divisions of labor tend to be sharply defined. Stage technology is therefore viewed as its own distinct professional field, the mission of which is to bring the bold and imaginative ideas of the director or stage designer to life.
Yang earned a master’s degree in technical design and production from Yale University in 2001, then returned home as Taiwan’s first academically trained technical stage designer. He founded the Stage Machine Lab at TNUA eight years ago and has gone on to initiate a series of joint academic–industrial endeavors, turning the lab into the go-to partner for many of Taiwan’s theaters.
Yang says that companies that build sets rarely develop breakthrough stage machinery technologies because most are old-school. They aren’t used to innovating and aren’t familiar with computer technology. Instead, they simply apply tried-and-true methods to their work. Academia, on the other hand, spends a large amount of time and money on technological experimentation and development.
Eugene Yang (right) is always comparing notes with other frontline theatrical professionals. In the photo, Yang and a colleague stand on a platform that can be raised, lowered, tilted, and rotated through 360 degrees.