Moving Sound.final 15 March 2015

Moving Sound: New Relationships between Contemporary Dance and Music in Improvisation

Dimitris Karalis

Ana Sánchez-Colberg

Introduction:

This article revisits the relationship between music and dance, sound and movement

in contemporary dance and music in improvisation. The discussion evolves from the premise

that much of the history of 20th-21st century approaches to dance and music in improvisation

–notwithstanding, or perhaps due to, the Cage-Cunningham collaborations- has been one of

diverging pathways - parallel and co-existing in some respects, but primarily one of

separation. Dance improvisation generally has reflected trends towards a 'somatic turn' that

promoted emancipation from music and its perceived theatricality and formal narrativity.

Consideration of dance and music in improvisation has remained the domain of vernacular

forms such as tap, flamenco, Indian dance (Cooper-Albright, A. & Gere, D. 2003). This

study proposes that after such period of mutual 'emancipation' much is to be gained from

bringing the knowledge discovered to inform the search for new relationships between the

two art forms, both in the process of improvisation as well as in performance. The main

philosophical thrust for the discussion draws from Peters, (2009) The Philosophy of

Improvisation. Peters argues that rather than a performance of risk taking and abandonment

in pursuit of 'freedom' (what he describes as a 'glorified love-in dressed up as art), true

improvisation requires “a powerful memory, memory of the parameters of an instrument, of

the body, of available technology, the parameter's of a work's structure, and one's place

within it at any time, the parameters of an idiom, a genre and its history, its possibilities."

(Peters, 2009, p.82). This idea, of the need to set parameters, understand rules, structures, as

well as one’s positions within an improvisational process, will be central to the discussion.

1 | Karalis/Sánchez-Colberg

The discussion proposes that in order to enter into a complex improvisation process

between dance and music we need to consider the particular 'given-ness' of dance and music:

what are its ‘figures’ (features), its ground (contexts) and field (its coexistence/correlations in

time and space) . In the discussion figure will refer to the analogical analysis of movement

and musical structures, the ground refers to the context of each discipline (where they ‘stand’

conceptually in relation to notion of improvisation) at the moment that they come into

collaboration. Finally, field refers to the proposed new synthesis. In a study of kinematics

and sound Haga (2012) suggests “it should be noted that the term similarity refers to

phenomena that bear a resemblance to each other. This implies that correspondences are

basically not a study of sameness; it is a study of similarities...” (Haga, 2012, p.10).

Therefore, analogies between music and dance are reviewed through a 'post-formal' lens

aligned to a complex thinking that involves "openness, dialectical process, contextualization

and on-going re-evaluation" (Montouri, 2003, p. 252). Seen through this perspective what

have been considered 'formal structures' (historically perceived to alienate the subject's

awareness from the 'here-ness' of the moment- central to most understanding of

improvisation) are returned to their 'bodily-ness'; what previously had been considered

opposites are hereby taken to be poles within a continuum at the moment of improvisation.

The project Moving Sound, a collaboration between the writers, music director

Dimitris Karalis and choreographer Ana Sánchez-Colberg together with

composer/saxophonist Yannis Kassetas is discussed as a case study. The project, which has

undergone a series of R&D stages since 2007, elaborates a common ground for practitioners

of both genres, in order not to co-exist through synchronic monologues, but to engage in

actual dialogues. The project has two inter-related strands, an exploration of the function of

composition and its role in ‘free improvisation’ between dance and music. For this discussion

we will focus on the work on ‘free improvisation’. The practice that supports the discussion


involved a rich and varied group of dancers and musicians who gathered for six consecutive

days in April 2014: ten professional dancers, members of Compañia de Danza 21 (CoDa21),

one of Puerto Rico’s premier dance companies, four musicians and the project leaders. The

dancers are mostly ‘veteran dancers’ who started their careers as ballet dancers (all have

reached soloist status in their careers) and in later years have expanded their work to include

contemporary forms of dance as well as other body-based therapies (yoga, Pilates, etc.).

Significantly for the collaboration, the dancers had an understanding of music coming from

their classical training as well as skills in movement based improvisation, as the company’s

repertory includes regular devised work with guest choreographers. Some of them also have

professional experience in other dance forms, for example jazz dance and salsa, a local

vernacular form of dance/music. The project involved five musicians, four members of a

local jazz group Guess Who, composed of one flutist, one percussionist, one piano player and

one bass player, and Kassetas, the composer, on the saxophone. The dancers have worked

with ‘live music’ innumerable times; this was the first time that the musicians from Guess

Who were working with contemporary dancers. However, they have experience in jazz

improvisation. One of the musicians – the bassist- also plays in local bomba jams, a local

Afro-Caribbean form of dance that involves improvisation between dancers, singers and

percussionists.

Opening thoughts on music and dance

We often see music and dance together without questioning their co-existence. As

listeners we are culturally predisposed to attend to rhythm and thematic melody. (For more

on the relationship between music, power and culture see Audio Culture: Readings in

Modern Music, Christoph Cox, Daniel Warner eds. 2004). We assume that it is natural to

listen to the beat, and move. In this case though, we are not talking about a real unity between


music and dance, an interchange of ideas and co-creation between the two. In this case music

is a closed system and dance is another. In this case (as in the Cage-Cunningham

collaborations), two individual systems happen at the same time, not intrinsically connected.

Most of the times, this unity is only based on external elements, or happens arbitrarily. Even

though the interconnections that might appear each time on the basis of chance might be

interesting, we can go deeper.

The urge to question the historically given relation between dance and music came

from our observation of jazz bands during improvisation. In jazz, improvisation can happen

only because there is a common “language” containing a complex set of rules based on

detailed elements that the participants share. In Jazz Theory (1995), one of the most

influential books on jazz improvisation, Levine describes how this common elements are the

ground that allows musicians to interchange specific roles, and most importantly, to establish

communication. Levine’s analysis of improvisation is founded upon the discussion of

structure- that is sequence, patterns and phrasing. Rhythm, scale, intonation, articulation,

nuance, intensity are only a few elements that are shared. Different to contemporary dancers,

jazz musicians not only bring technical knowledge, but also knowledge of the ‘standards’ of

the jazz cannon, as well as a wide variety of musical patterns, phrases (licks), segments of

which are brought into the improvisation, embellished, transformed reconsidered:

Licks and patterns should become part of your musical unconscious, kind of like an inner library you can draw upon. At the same time they should not be your musical be-all and end-all (p. 250)

In that way improvisation remains entirely open yet through the potential use of structured

phrases, the participants can understand, co-compose and anticipate the next movement of the

leading instrument. This allows for a “productive interpretation of origination and

regeneration as the new and the old are engaged with simultaneously” (Peters, 2009, p. 2).


Significantly, the musical structures (and history) that the project brings into dialogue

with contemporary dance are those of contemporary Jazz - a musical form that not unlike

dance improvisation has pursued 'independence' from the 'constraints' of classical

composition and performance. Speaking of the early jazz improvisers Bogo (2002) notes that:

The primary musical bond shared between these diverse performers is a fascination with sonic possibilities and surprising musical occurrences and a desire to improvise, to a significant degree, both the content and the form of the performance. In other words, free improvisation moves beyond matters of expressive detail to matters of collective structure; it is not formless music-making, but form-making music. (Bogo, 2002, p. 167)

It is important to note that this definition of free improvisation engages directly with notions

of structure and form, whereby the main aim is not collective expression (Peter’s ‘love-in’)

but actual form making. Peters goes as far as suggesting that the fundamental relationship in

improvisation is between "improvisor and improvisation, not between improvisor and

improvisor" (Peters, 2009, p.3).

In utilizing the idea of 'dialogue' the discussion moves beyond what has been referred

to as 'listening with the eye' - the conventional call-response of much improvisation involving

music - where interlocutors "are always looking for an opening in which to respond" (Peters,

2009, p. 123) to an understanding of dialogue as a 'listening of the ear' - whereby participants

listen to 'what is there' at the beginning of improvisation in which the “given is given in ever-

new ways" (Peters, 2009, p. 120). Furthermore, Bradlyn (1991) suggests that

the first step in learning to listen is stopping still and opening our ears, first to figure, next to ground, next to field. The field, the aggregate soundscape is the most difficult to perceive […] [T]here must be a constant flux, a never fully focused shifting among figure, ground, and field [...] One performer’s playing may suddenly emerge as a stark figure against the ground of another’s only to just as suddenly submerge into the ground or even farther back into the field as another voice emerges (Bradlyn cited in Bogo 2002, p. 177).


It is important to note that amongst the aims of the project and related to

improvisational frameworks is the creation of an ensemble. We choose this word precisely

because of its literal meaning:

[musical] interconnectedness makes an ensemble more than just a collection of individuals. Interactions in jazz involves the spontaneous and improvised musical reactions of one musician to what another musician in the ensemble has performed. Interactions can either be an isolated incident in which one musical statement elicits a simple response or it can be an ongoing process in which one musical idea triggers a response that prompts yet another response…It can also be multi-dimensional, interaction can involve all members of the ensemble. (Rinzler, 2008, p. 28)

If music and dance have developed apart for a long time, moving sound takes them back to

their roots.

The ground on which we stand

The history of dance's 'emancipation' from music en route to establishing itself as an

'independent' art for is well established - from the avant-garde experiments of the German

Expressionists (Wigman, Laban, Jooss) to Cunningham and Cage. It is commonly

understood that the Cage/Cunningham inheritance that has shaped contemporary dance

improvisational landscape is marked by a desire to resists a perceived 'mimeticism' between

music structures and movement vocabulary in the classical and modern dance traditions.

Furthermore, this legacy has been marked by a search for a democratic art making with an

emphasis on collective creation and collective authorship which stands in opposition to the

hierarchical structures embedded within a classical score. This tradition is perceived to be one

of an invisible supremacy of the composer (and by association the choreographer) where

dancers are 'instruments' and movements are 'notes' mirroring the musical score in an chain

of representation and narrativity.

Besides the Cage/Cunningham collaborations, there is evidence of other exploration

in sound and movement in improvisation. In the essay ‘We Insist! Seeing music and hearing


dance’ Goldman (2010) brings to the fore the work of Judith Dunn and Bill Dixon, whose

work throughout the 1970s was based on jazz improvisational modes:

“musicians and dancers were working as equals, meaning that the music was not an accompaniment to the dance, and dancing wasn’t just an explanation of the music. The idea that they were both running parallel and interacting, was a key element of their work” (Goldman, 2010, p. 65).

Dianne McIntyre founded the dance company Sounds in Motion in 1972. Her work

grew out of Dixon’s and Dunn’s and is considered primarily in its capacity to act a practice of

freedom and protest. Little is known of the actual methodology, fragments of reviews refer

to McIntyre’s ability to translate “the rhythms into different parts of her body” (Goldman,

2010, p. 87). For reasons that are cultural and political and touch upon issues of class, race

and gender at the time that these collaborations were taking place, critical response was not

very positive and their work has gone into oblivion. There is little left behind of their actual

processes to contribute significantly to methodological considerations of this article.

However, what is significant about Goldman’s examination of these two cases of

improvisation to jazz music is her conclusion that there remains a pervasive bias that dance is

an art of the body and music is an art of the mind which goes someway to explain the

continuing separation of these two arts in the general zeitgeist of ‘contemporary dance’.

It is safe to generalise that in recent years in cases when music/sound enters into

improvisation with dance there is a marked preference for ‘sounds landscapes’ and sonic

environments. The abstract and formal nature of musical structures seems to be at odds with

the actuality and physicality of the body in movement and the body’s presence on stage.

Work with ‘music’ exists primarily in the domain of ‘choreographer’ led work, the work of

Keersmaker and Reich, Davies and Bryars, Morris stand out. Therefore it seems that music

and dance in improvisation not only suffer from the bias of a perceived body/mind

dichotomy, their collaboration has suffered from what Gere (2003) defines as an on-going


divide between improvisation as a “reflection and private discovery” and composition (hence

choreography) with its demands for a rigour that goes against individual expressiveness and

freedom (Cooper-Albright A., & Gere, D. 2003, p. xv). This position seems at odd with the

definitions of improvisation-generally previously discussed.

Consequently, dance improvisation has been approached primarily from a perspective

that prioritises movement-based somatic state guided by proprioception. This approach

favours the focus on a 'world-inside' based on the “improviser’s aesthetic reactions to their

own moving”, a listening 'within skin' (De Spain, 2003, p. 31). This perspective is supported

by another factor and that is a recurrent reference to a pre-linguistic state, one of pure

presence in the moment. Recent studies of presence in performance strongly argue against

this pre-linguistic state as a precondition for presence (a position normally underscored by

mis-reading or partial readings of phenomenology) as any act of ‘presence is always encoded

with cultural intertexts that complicated the experience of the present’ (Power, 2008 p. 205).

Foster (1994) suggests a different approach to improvisation, one that chimes with

Peters’ position previously discussed and opens up the path to a more complex engagement

with music as proposed in Moving Sound. Foster suggest that improvisation requires a state

of ‘bodymindfulness’ that “rather than suppress any function of the mind summons up a kind

of hyperawareness” [a word also used by Peters] “of the relationship between immediate

action and overall shape, between that which is about to take place and that which has and

will take place” (Foster, 1994, p. 7). She goes on to suggest that it is a careful “back and

forth between the unknown and the known” – a known that includes “any overarching

structural guidelines that delimit the improvising body’s choices, such as a score for

performance, or any set of rules predetermined in advance ... The known includes any allied

medium with which the performance is in collaboration, such an improvisation among

musicians and dancers..” (Foster, 1994, p. 4)


It is this ‘possible allegiance’ in Foster’s terms that Moving Sound explores in detail:

how do we bring music structures and dance to work together again? can musical structures

be aligned to ‘bodily’ structures so that they share present themselves as part of the body-

mindfulness suggested by Foster? What would happen if the notion of ‘form-making’ as is

understood in free jazz improvisation is brought to bear upon movement and sound

improvisation?

The ‘allied’ relationship suggested by Foster and evolved in Moving Sounds begins

with recent developments in the understanding of sound, motion and ‘the body’. These

underpin the methods of the project. In the essay Cognition and the Body (2004) Bowman

discusses the ways in which ‘sonorous experience is invariably corporeal, and it is

distinguished from other semiotic experience by its links to muscle, movement and action'

(Bowman, 2004, p. 17). Bowman argues that musical properties which many consider as

‘structural devices’ are in fact bodily constituted: tension and release, dissonance and

consonance, volume, balance are all consonant with the reflective language of body-based

improvisation. Therefore, music material rather than appearing as an alienating force in

improvisation actually has the potential to return focus to the body “actively guiding,

shaping, facilitating, enabling” (Bowman, 2004, p.26) both dancers and musicians. Bowman

notes that the relationship between sound and body is reciprocal, structures move the body,

equally there is a “human capacity for cross modal transfer, a natural gift for mapping

structures, patterns and gestures from our embodied experience and action onto inviting

sonorous material” (Bowman, 2004, p. 19). There is already a reciprocity that invites a

common ground to be established in order to achieve a synthesis, not parallelisms: a synthesis

in which motion and sound participate equally, as performing elements of one common

system. Within “moving sound” we can compose movements of bodies and instruments


practically on the same score, and thus enrich the ways that we understand and achieve the

interrelation between motion and sound, movement and dance.

Figures in a landscape

The process of improvisation began by questioning (and then establishing) a field of

common ‘knowns’ across dancers and musicians. What do musicians bring into the

improvisation? What do dancers? We began by looking at what musicians bring into an

emergent ‘common system’. We selected basic music structures in order to start the

collaboration in such a way that dancers became familiar with the ‘knowns’ of a jazz

ensemble, the musical structural elements of jazz improvisation in order to evolve the

common system. These were rhythm, pitch, volume, articulation and phrasing. These musical

‘knowns’ were cross-mapped to fundamental ‘knowns’ in dance. The primary tool that we

chose was Labananalysis and in particular the four effort factors. It is well documented, that

Laban’s studies in movement harmony were highly influenced by music harmony:

Between the harmonic components of music and those of dance, there is not only an outward resemblance, but a structural congruity, which although hidden at first, can be investigated and verified, point by point. (Laban, n.p. cited in Moore, 2009, p. 189).

In a manner that echoes Haga’s previous discussion of similarities, Moore (2009) proposes

that Laban seemed to have been employing “an analogic metaphor... [that] combines analogic

modelling with the imaginative function of metaphoric thinking” (Moore, 2009, p. 189). She

clarifies further: “an analogic metaphor is a controlled comparison in which the analogue

model (in this case dance) shares with the original model (in this case music harmony) the

same structure and pattern of relationships” (Moore, 2009, p. 189).

The first element of structuring the audible in relation to the kinetic is rhythm which

Jordan (2005) considers as “a principle of organization common to music and dance” (p. 23.

Arguably in dance improvisation this organizing capacity of rhythm is more prevalent in


forms such flamenco, tap, Indian dance and other vernacular forms, where the connection

between the beat and gesture (step) is the fundamental motivation of the dance form.

Speaking of Flamenco, Heffner- Hayes (2003) comments: “In Flamenco, the shape of the

improvisational event is contained by the rhythmic structure and a dynamic of building

complexity” (Heffner- Hayes, 2003, p. 112). Heffner-Hayes points to the important fact that

“Flamenco improvisation demands that the internal structure and the outer appearance of the

event resemble established flamenco” (Heffner- Hayes, 2003, p. 114). However in contrast,

in our work, we aimed to cultivate the ability in the mover to hold on an esoteric sense of

duration, which contradicted the exoteric. In order to achieve this we began exploring simple

structures: a walking pattern done to the shifting of duration of movement from 2/4 beat to ¾

to 4/4 , stepping on 1, 2 etc in order activate the ear and connect link the exoteric audible

stimulus to the esoteric (inner) sense of duration of movement. After exploring the consonant

relationship between rhythm and movement, we explored counterpoint, for example step in

the 1 of a 4/4 beat, when the audible beat was in 3/4. With these exercises the dancer began

to move independently, but also within a complete awareness of the whole:

musical/rhythmical structures, counterpointing /dissonant moving bodies in space.

Pitch, the next foundational element of music, was defined in the vertical axis – high

level for high pitch and low level for low pitch. Although there is ample discussion of the

phenomenology of pitch and motion (for example, Pratt 1930 and Shove & Rep 1995), the

discussion seems not to have transferred to dance and even less dance improvisation. In our

work, we began to address this by mapping pitch onto two complementary spatial axes.

During the early improvisations the vertical plane of the body was divided into three zones

each mirroring an octave: feet to hip joint – hip joint to shoulder, shoulder to the space

reached by extended arm (edge of the vertical plane in the kinesphere). In other instances

pitch was mapped onto a general space axis where movements up and down the scale were


not determined by a body axis but by relative positioning of body parts in the space grid.

Towards the final stages of the work dancers could shift from one axis to the next. The pitch

figure was mapped onto the movement factor of weight, as there is correlation between the

high and low tones (in relation to rising and falling tension) in pitch and the ‘increasing and

decreasing pressure’ quality of weight (Moore, p. 151).

Pitch is organized into intervals. The mathematical analogy of intervals in the 8th /

12th tone scale, coming from the Pythagorean musical theory, is interestingly connected to the

analogy of the parts of the body, akin to the mathematical concept that led to the creation of

the Golden measure in figurative arts. The same analogy has been used therefore here in

order to establish ‘the steps’ or ‘intervals’ of the basic subdivisions of tones and semi-tones.

We started with a simple task, mapping ascending and descending scales to movement from

lower to higher level. We exercised on chromatic scales (semi-tones, smallest steps),

major/minor scales, whole tone scales, cadences, etc. Although it seemed simple at first, there

was an inherent performance challenge, in as much as dancers had to learn to modulate their

range of movement within a continuum, with clear indication of the subdivisions that span

from the highest to the lowest tone of the scale. After establishing the connections of the

basic subdivisions of the musical scale onto the body (on the vertical axis), we practiced

interval variation - triads, arpeggios, and patterns, commonly used in jazz improvisation.

In the explorations of pitch, an important difference had to be established: The

metaphoric spatial rising and falling of pitch in music can become an actual rising and falling

of the body in the vertical axis. However, if the movement is only manifested in an axis (two

dimensional), we quickly enter into music mimicry. We had to re-think the mapping of pitch

onto a vertical plane, rather than axis, as the lateral tension contained within a plane of

movement allowed for more variety in the movement response.


In music, volume refers to the fullness or intensity of a sound. It is defined within the

piano/forte continuum – the energy that it takes to produce a sound. We cross-mapped this to

the movement factor of flow. Although in music the term flow is connected to phrasing, in

movement terms, flow refers to the amount of energy that gives definition to a given

movement. Normally it is referred to the ability to stop or not the movement. However, flow

can also be perceived as how energy is contained within muscle and tissue. For example, a

bound movement is defined by the tension of energy within, a bound movement projects into

space, therefore cross-mapped to forte. In actions that are free, the energy is unbound within;

it is a movement that does not project. Therefore, free-flow was made analogous to piano.

Phrasing in music leads us to consider articulation, defined by the contrasting factors of

staccato/legato (separated/connected), which in movement terms the closest but not identical

correspondence is the movement factor of time. The movement quality of sudden is defined

by Laban as “movement sensation of a short span of time” (Laban p.73) and was related to

staccato. Furthermore in staccato the sense is of instant occurrence, which goes some way to

understand it s possible connections to Laban’s ‘quick’, a word which is also used in

connection to ‘sudden’. The quality of sustained, “a movement sensation of a long span of

time” was mapped to legato.

After we had familiarised ourselves with the basic elements, the explorations became

more complex as we began to deal with the embodiment of these structures in combinations.

For example: we used a simple musical phrase of ten notes containing alternating variables:

the pitch phrase remained the same (repeated x times), but with each cycle of repetition

changes happened in articulation, for example; the three first notes staccato, the rest legato. In

the next cycle of repetition we added the factor of volume, ending up with combinations of

staccato/forte followed by legato/piano and so forth until all combinations had been explored.


We chose not to work with either music or Laban notation, as in the context of this work

they represent quite closed systems of notations. Rather in keeping with more recent trends

in the use of scores for improvisation and composition, we worked from a graphic score in

which the key musical structures of pitch, volume, articulation and phrasing were depicted.

This facilitated various aspects of the process of setting up the analogies: it was an effective

short hand way for dancers to encounter the elements of the audible, it helped to guide

phrasing in both music and dance terms, and significantly to the moment of ‘free

improvisation’, to safeguard both dancers and musicians autonomous creative and physical

response to the ‘figure’:

At first the score, how to read it, how to be creative was difficult, particularly the silences, where you realised it did not mean that you should stay still, but that in that moment your choices were totally open. It was interesting this negotiating of total freedom and very precise restrictions within the same improvisation. (Joshua Rosado, dancer).

Similarly:The score seemed to demand a lot of material, more variation. The limits were at first difficult, but interesting, in time, I was able to use my whole body. (Tania Muniz, dancer).

Explorations further afield

The project gave the opportunity to the musicians to open up their artistry and see its

effect on a broader scale. It was not an easy task. In order to participate in this project, the

musicians had to break the “box” of the musical sheet and be able to go beyond perceiving

the world aurally; to see different aspects of their very art by witnessing the transformation of

music into another art form:

I had not played with dancers before, this was very different,You find yourself in a very different relationship with the instrument and the dancers. (Edward Ortiz Jr, flutist).

In the same manner that dancers were introduced to musical structures, musicians were

introduced to movement factors. We explored various tasks:


In the first improvisation we asked each musician to follow one dancer’s whole body

movements. He could choose which elements of the body in movement to respond to

musically. The aim was to establish an improvisation motivated by a palindrome of stimuli.

From the perspective of the dancer, music offered the aural, for the musicians the visual, both

shaping their art separately and at the same time as one. It was clear that this task was too

broad and could easily lead to what we were trying to avoid – superficial interpretation of

movement in sound. The movement of the body was so dense that the musician did not know

how to deconstruct and respond to musically:

It is funny for us, the words rhythms, pitch, groove have immediate practical meaning, we can perform them, we can ‘notice’ them when performing with other musicians, no problem, but ask me to ‘understand’ what the leg is doing, or an arm... that is hard... (Edward Ortiz, Jr., flutist).

At the same time, we recognised that the dancers did not address the task of offering

something ‘clear’ to the improvisation, as they were very focussed on their own sensation of

movement.

Hence in the early attempts, we ended up in two parallel monologues. Clearer

restrictions were needed. In the next set of improvisations we assigned one instrument to one

specific body part (i.e. flute follows right hand). The flute was following the hand not unlike

a conductor, looking for changes in direction, energy, and flow as stimuli for the musical

response. In another instance, the bass followed the legs. For one musician:

I compare it with bomba, we have rhythms we have melody...and understand your intention, legs were easy, arms harder...(Richard Pena, bassist)

The musicians found it easy to work with what the legs could offer, however if the dancer

was proposing using the core area of the body (torso, hips) this proved more challenging as

the subtleties of motion in this part of the body were not immediately accessible:

the core is hard, not so easy to see, it will need lots of practice, the movement is very subtle, but the thing that comes out musically is very interesting (Yannis Kassetas, saxophonist).


It was a slow process and detailed improvisatory process-- each dancer improvising to each

instrument, so that the commonalities and differences across each could be identified,

perceived and worked on:

In the group improvisation there is a challenge, you establish something with one dancer, you ‘get it’, and then another dancer comes in with a different proposal, you have to re-establish the connection... (Edward Ortiz, flutist)

The ability of the body to offer a multiplicity of projected movements is what makes

the construction of the dialogue between dancer and musician so dynamically interesting.

When I am moving my hand (for example) I am still aware that I am moving with the whole body, to support the hand. I think that I am sending the intention ‘hand’ to the musician, that he can pick up the signal, but I will still move the rest of the body to the side, then I have the doubt, of whether the musician can ‘read’this... (Omar Nieves, dancer, post day 3 debriefing)

The musician of a monophonic instrument (i.e. flute, saxophone) has the ability to address

one moving element at a time. The same movement in this way, in its complexity, can be

interpreted by the musician in innumerable variations, which yet remain systematically

identical (or coherent). This additionally offers the chance to two or more musicians to

respond in dialogue between them (according/dis-cording) to the same kinetic stimulus

offered by one dancer. Thus, the improvisation is generated by structured layers upon layers

of propositions.

On the other hand, an instrument that is polyphonic (like a piano) is able to address

synchronically more elements of the kinetic stimulus. Thus the dialogue can be structured on

what we call in music vertical harmony. Simultaneously, the dancer is responding each time

to a different aspect of her very action and therefore reinterprets the dynamic implications of

it.

Therefore, Moving Sound, in congruence with current understanding of

improvisation, offers a process of openness that can only happen through the establishment of


a coherent system, with commonly shared rules. In the particular case of Moving Sound,

instead of creating two systems of separate discourse, we have created the conditions of

constructing one, establishing the parameters of communication between dancer and

musician in the ‘present moment’ of any improvisation. Moving Sound has pursued the

creation of a more versatile instrument, in which not only the simultaneous exchange of the

same notions are possible, but also the creation of a new more complex polyphony, within

which sound and movement function as intrinsic elements of it. The recursive system of

Moving Sound allows for the co-creating musician and dancer to construct improvisation in

the sense of an instant composition, in which parts of what could be movements in dance, or

notes in music, are roles irrespectively inter-exchanged, creating, melodic lines or ‘chords’ of

vertical harmony. By interweaving motion and sound, we achieve a common polyphony

(instead of two polyphonic systems monophonically arranged), only this time with even more

voices, more nuances, more artistic perspectives, more possibilities - achieving ultimately a

more complete and complex engagement of the senses; even reaching complete audio-visual

substitution: hence, re-considering the musically arranged dance in silence.

REFERENCES:

Bogo, D. (2002). “Negotiating Freedom: Values and Practices in Contemporary Improvisational Music”. Black Music Research Journal. 22(2) Autumn: 165-188.

Bowman, W. (2004). “Cognition and the Body: Perspectives from Music Education,” in Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: Toward Embodied Teaching and Learning, Bresler L (ed). (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press): 29-50.

Cooper-Albright, A. & Gere, D. (2003). Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press).

Cox, C. & Warner, D. (2004) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, (Continuum Books).


De Spain, K. (2003) “The Cutting Edge of Awareness”. in Albright A.C. and Gere, D. (eds). Taken by Surprise a Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press): 27-38.

Foster, S. L. (1994). “Taken By Surprise: Improvisation in Dance and Mind”, in Albright A.C. and Gere, D. (eds). Taken by Surprise a Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press): 3-10.

Goldman, D. (2010). I Want to Be Ready: Improvised Dance as a Practice of Freedom (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).

Haga, E (2008). Correspondences between Music and Body Movement. Unpublished Ph D Thesis, University of Oslo: retrievable at: https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/.../music-movement-Haga-final.pdf.

Heffner-Hayes, M. (2003). “The Writing on the Wall: reading Improvisation in Flamenco and Postmodern Dance” in in Albright A.C. and Gere, D. (eds). Taken by Surprise a Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press): 105-116.

Jordan, S. (2005). “Musical/Choreographical Discourse: Method, Music Theory”. In Meaning in Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance. Morris, G. (ed), (London: Routdlege):.14-24.

Levine, M. (1995). Jazz Theory. (Sher Music Co. Petaluma: California).

Montouri, A. (2003). “The Complexity of Improvisation and the Improvisation of Complexity: Social Science, Art and Creativity”. Human Relations. 56(2): 237-255.

Moore, C. L. (2009) The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music and Dance According to Rudolf Laban: An Examination of his Unpublished Writings and Drawings., EBSCO Publishing eBook Collection. AN 458715.

Peters, G. (2009). The Philosophy of Improvisation. (Chicago: The Chicago University Press).

Power, C. (2008) Presence in Play: A Critique of Theories of Presence in Theatre. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Pratt, C. (1930). “The Spatial Characters of High and Low Tones”, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 13: 278-85.

Rinzler, P. E. (2008). The Contradictions of Jazz, (Maryland: Scarecrow Press).

Further Reading:

Feisst, S.M. (2009). “John Cage and Improvisation- An Unresolved Relationship”. In Solis, G. Gabriel Solis et al. (eds). ) Music Improvisation: Art, Education and Society. Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 38-51. Lewis, G.E. (1996), “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives”. Black Music Research Journal, 16(1) (Spring): 91-122.


Martin, N (2013), Emergent Choreography: Spontaneous \Ensemble Dance Composition in Improvised Performance, PhD dissertation, Texas Woman University, retrievable at:http://poar.twu.edu/bitstream/handle/11274/330/martinc.pdf?sequence=1

Shove, P. & Rep, B. (1995). “Musical Motion and Performance: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives”. The Practice of Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):55-83.


Documents

Moving Sound.final 15 March 2015