Responsive Sound Overview
The sonic textures of Visible Sketch are driven by the dancers movements as sensed by two Kinect Cameras streaming depth and greyscale video data into a custom sound enginer I designed in Max/MSP.
Work Description
Visible Sketch v.4 (11:30) is an interactive media/dance performance for three movers/vocalists. We use sketches to describe each major performance of the piece, referring to an iterative creative process that resists perfectionist temptations. Furthermore, we use language convention of software versioning to point to its continued transformation throughout the development of this multi-disciplinary work.
In their joint statement about Visible Sketch v.3, David Dorfman, Virginia Johnson and Tiffany Mills called the work “an imaginistic evocation of a unique world inhabited by committed mover/vocalists whose transformative journey visits a series of evolutionary states.” The artistic team builds these states around the poetic phenomenon of visibility. In this vein, Visible Sketch v.5 explores a dynamic concealing/revealing in contexts of multiple relationships: individual and ensemble, body and self, open and closed, part and whole, qualities and quantities, knowing and naiveté.
As a multimedia performance, Visible Sketch v.4 employs movement, interactive sonic arts, and costume design in a blended choreographed/composed, improvised and responsive performative structure . Throughout the piece, the movers cycle through kaleidoscopic shifts of quality and texture which bring in and out of the focus the ensemble and its individual actors. The performers’ movements drive musical gestures and influence the unfolding musical dramaturgy. The fragmented individual/ensemble is embodied by work’s vocal passages, sung live by the performers. The interplay between individual and environment is seen in the performers’ changing relationship with their costumes. The costumes, dresses constructed out of aluminum screening and steel welding tape, provide a gamut of rich imagery throughout the work. The dresses shield, incubate and partner the performers, before serving as the standing relic or artifact of the performer’s transformation. In combination, these elements work together to obscure the the divide between individual and group, propel the ebb and flow of juxtapositions within the transformation, and support the recapitulation of the performers at the end of their journey.
Documentation
Performances
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC. 2016.
Western Wyoming Community College, Rock Springs, Wyoming. 2015.
Credits
Britta Joy Peterson // choreography + costume collaboration
Grace Grace Grace [fka Garrett Laroy Johnson] // responsive sound
Evan Anderson // lighting design
Gwendolyn Quitberg // costume design