RAH'S CENTENNIAL GALA PRESENTATION
by Jeanne Robinson with PowerPoint by Steph Herman
(7/7/07)
Dancing in zero-gee has been a life-long dream of mine - a dream I almost reached. In the early '80's I was short-listed for a seat on the Space Shuttle to create dance in zero gravity as part of NASA's Civilian in Space program. The Challenger explosion ended that dream for my lifetime. On that day I promised myself that I would find a way to keep that dream alive.
Robert wanted us to go to space -- a goal he considered crucial to our long-term survival. He said, "We need to have as many baskets for our eggs as possible. Even if we don't manage to ruin this planet ourselves, natural disasters or changes--or even changes in our star--could make it impossible to live on this planet."
Everyone here was touched in their life by Robert Heinlein. For me it was that he believed, as I do, that the arts have an important part to play in leading us into space. Facts take humans only so far; it's their dreams that make them do great things.
STARDANCE is a vision that uses the grace of zero-gravity dance to convey something of the grandeur, intrigue and promise of space to earthbound humans. It's a short film that aspires to help reignite humanity's fire to go to the stars -- to reach ordinary people and communicate the majesty, beauty, grace, mystery and transcendence that await us all, just above our heads: the bliss of the stars.
The Stardance film project was born in 2003, following the first Heinlein Award ceremony. During a conversation with Professor John Barnstead he asked me if it was possible to make the Stardance - the zero gravity dance Spider and I had envisioned in our novels. I responded instantly with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" I told him to do it properly, and to reach as many people as possible, the dance had to be on film, using state of the art computer generated images, and cutting edge visual effects.
With John's financial support, the Stardance Project was born. Thank you, John.
My vision is to bring the excitement of the frontier of space to everyone in a new and entertaining way--the same vision that inspired THE STARDANCE TRILOGY. With enough resources, advances in film technology make it possible to animate a dancer in live action, then place her in any environment we can imagine.
THE TEAM Once I completed a first draft of the treatment, I started assembling a core production team. First to come aboard was writer/director Michael Lennick. He became my collaborator on the script, and brought extensive experience in designing visual effects for television and films such as Videodrome. |
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Michael introduced me to Hugo Award winning space artist and visual effects designer, Ron Miller. Ron created the space imagery surrounding our Stardancer, Kathleen McDonagh, in all of our visual material. |
The latest addition to the team was composer/musician, James Raymond. He's the son of David Crosby, and keyboardist for Crosby, Stills & Nash. James composed the music we will hear tonight. |
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THE SCRIPT: I'd like to tell you a little about the script Michael and I wrote: The story begins with Astronaut Treya Anderson, a full-time maintenance worker on the space station, completing an EVA repair. While waiting for instructions from CAPCOM, Treya contemplates the beauty of the cosmos, and drifts into a meditative reverie - one that quickly expands to encompass life, the universe, and beyond. The sights she sees, and the characters she meets - combine in what becomes her new reality, a startling interior journey, dancing among the stars. In the process, she comes to more fully understand the universe, the infiniverse, and humanity's place in it. This story will come to life, but only with proper funding and support. I had hoped to have a CGI concept reel, something in motion by now, but we are still exploring how to do this in a cost-effective way and with limited resources. So I'm going to ask you to join me in doing something I know you're all very good at: using your imaginations as you watch the presentation to picture how a shared experience of the bliss of the stars can help reignite humanity's fire to travel to space. Consider this presentation an interim progress report. We have the vision, the enthusiasm, and the creative team in place to make this film. What we need now is help - financial and otherwise. In short, we'd like any of you who share our vision and goals, to join us in this dance among the stars. |
In closing I'd like to thank all of the Honorary Stardancers, our readers, whose generous contributions have brought the Stardance Project this far. Thanks to them, we're on our way to the stars. |
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