TheatreFace: This week, I tried something I'd never done before, but was always interested in doing: rock climbing. Purdue's recreational sports center debuted a new climbing facility last semester, and I finally took the plunge this week and started climbing.
True confessions: first, I'm not very good yet (I've climbed exactly twice!). Second, I'm pretty afraid of heights. (I know, I know! A theatre technician afraid of heights?! I don't like them, but I get over it when I have to for my job.) So all of this is pretty far outside my comfort zone. Maybe that's why I started thinking about the ways climbing overlaps with much of what we do in theatre--as a way to feel less uncomfortable. Regardless of the reason, I have been thinking about what I have been learning in terms of what we do on stage, and I am fascinated by the connections.
3 comments:
What a breath of fresh air! It is nice to read about simple numbers and physics again, I have missed the beauty of math amidst so much design and color. This brings back high school, the days of Calculus and Physics class, and reminds me that even though I go to art school, I can still enjoy the straightforwardness of numbers. And it is very interesting how closely tech and rock climbing resemble each other. There are many aspects of angles, weight, ropes, and pulleys that reflect back on each other between theatre and mountainous rock climbing adventures, and I would love to study this topic further.
In general, the physics for lifting things are the same, whether you are lifting a person as they walk up a rock or you're lifting a piece of set. You are still fighting against the forces of gravity, and those stay the same regardless of what and where you are lifting (unless you are not lifting things on earth, but that's a different matter entirely). Also, I agree with Emma in that I miss math. More specifically, I think I miss basic kinematics, and dealing with straightforward things like friction and basic gravity.
Both climbing and theatre borrow a lot from a much older tradition: sailing. The technologies behind line-making, knot tying, and the use of pulleys to employ mechanical advantage were developed and perfected in a laboratory both powerful and merciless: the sea. Not only our most basic technologies, but also our terms and superstitions in theatre come from the sailors who first took their knowledge of rigging from the deck to the stage. The same is true with climbing. The term "belay" in climbing is a sailing term that means to stop, slow down, or control, as in the falling climber. The "belay pins" on our mid rail are near duplicates of those that would be found lining the gunwales of any traditionally rigged sailing ship. The also serve the same purpose, providing a stable point around which to turn bends that will apply mechanical advantage against a load, whether exerted by wind or window unit. We owe sailors a debt of gratitude for enduring the often deadly trial and error process that separated the good knots from the bad, the best being not so much knots, but bends, that work while weakening the line as little as possible. When tying two climbing ropes together for a long rappel, it is no accident that climbers almost universally employ the "Double Fisherman's Bend," exerting reliable holding force while weakening their line minimally. I know all this probably isn't news to any of the geeks out there, but I just couldn't find any thoughts to express on any of the four Les Miz articles on this weeks green page, although I did try. I swear.
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