ironic erratic erotic is an interdisciplinary performance scored for dancer, tuba, contrabass, and motion-sensitive live electronics. The goal of this piece was to create a performance environment where the musicians and dancers are directly engaged in a semi-improvised feedback loop, where the acoustic and electronic layers of the sound are a semi-recontextualization of the dancer's movements.
The work was created using improvised transcriptions between sound, movement, and sound again. More specifically, the material originated with the composer, who created 20 improvised samples on his viola. These samples were sent to the dancer, who filmed 20 movement responses. At last, these videos (with the original audio cut) were sent to the musicians, who improvised on each movement response, changing their interpretation on the choreography with each take. In this way, all the material came from the performers. Thus, instead of notating notes and rhythms, the score references these samples and how they morph in real time, creating a representation of the piece that can be easily memorized and elaborated on in concert.
The data from the wearable motion sensors on the dancer is streamed in real time to a computer running MaxMSP, which is also sampling the live audio signal from the musicians. The data is dynamically filtered and mapped to control how the audio signals are treated and played back during the performance, creating a layer of sound that is a joint-creation of both the musicians and the dancer, though is ultimately a product of human-to-computer interaction.
