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REVOLVE [Choreography and interactive performance]

REVOLVE is a real-time interactive performance that sheds light on the ‘stuff’ dreams are made on, the night-stories and bodily states that shape our sleeping hours. As an arts-science-technology collaboration, the research imperative is to translate the data of a sleep scientist into sonic and choreographic content through wearable technologies. The work invites audiences to experience a series of states enfolding voice, sound, light, video and dance, as the performer metaphorically traces the path of the sleeper’s mind and body from dusk to dawn. Driven by a curiosity about the body, its rhythms and potential for change, the work alludes to the planetary, physiological and personal cycles that round our lives. In doing so, it explores how the non-literalness of scientific phenomena (data from EEG readings of brain waves) can be mapped and elaborated upon through interactive performance. The research contributes to the growing field of dance-technology-science through the creation of a performance system.

The performance enfolds wearable electronic sensor technology and an interactive sound environment within the choreographic score. The sound design is partially composed, and partially interactive. The composed sounds are sourced from EEG brainwaves, recordings of a sleeping child and the voice of tenor Keith Lewis. The interactive sounds are based on the auditory beat, a phenomenon that arises when two pure tones of different, but neighboring frequencies are played together. Sensing the body, its gestures and its environment through the measurement of light, tilt and acceleration, the ‘sensor suit’ allows me to control and interact with the malleable sound environment. I can respond to this environment by choosing to expose or hide light-sensitive parts of my body and combine these actions with movements of varied speed. In turn, the sonic feedback influences the emerging choreographic score, inducing constraints and generative cyclic patterns for movement.