Fall Dance 2017, Northern Illinois University

Serving as the assistant technical director, my primary assigned task was to develop the technical design for a castle unit that needed to move on and off stage for one of the dance pieces.

Each of the castle’s towers housed one tip jack. The tip jacks were designed around using stock triple-swivel casters and stock 3” casters. The flats making up the castle towers were bolted to the tip jacks and the center archway was supported by the towers. The jacks included space at the rear for counterweights. The triple-swivel casters were attached to the jacks with a hinge to ensure all three casters were always in contact with the floor allowing for the increased maneuverability of the triple-swivel casters. The casters attached to the lever arm rest beyond the pivot and the jack is “self-locking” when it is in the castle-up position, although a bar lock (shown below) was included as a backup.