Interspecific Interactions: Interaction Modes Between Sound and Movement in Collaborative Performance

Abstract

Collaboration between composers and choreographers is an approach possessing a long history and expansive list of creative outcomes. In recent years, such collaborative endeavours have further engaged with knowledge and practices from scientific disciplines, consequently giving rise to an emergent field of research focusing on novel modes of interaction between the expressive media of sound and movement as facilitated by new technologies and methodologies; from analogue proximity devices permitting dancers rudimentary control over recordings in the 1965 Variations V, to Marco Donnarumma utilizing biophysical sensors and machine learning algorithms as means of maintaining detailed command of digital signal processing (DSP) through specific body postures in the 2016 Corpus Nil. Whilst the contributions by this relatively new transdisciplinary field have produced practice and research outcomes of unquestionable value, its main focus concentrates on the expression of sound through movement, with lesser emphasis placed on perspectives of practitioners utilizing interactive sound as means of informing the arrangement of movement. This chapter aims to reflect those perspectives through the research conducted during my collaborations with dance practitioners, where we have together examined areas such as each performer’s role while operating interactive systems, employing different modes of system operation according to the desired determinacy of resulting material, and simplification of discipline-specific language when engaged in polydisciplinary collaboration. The contribution of this research concerns a novel taxonomy of interaction modes informed by the biological phenomenon of symbiosis. Defined as close and persistent relationships between organisms of different species, symbiosis manifests in three core types—mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism—with each type determined according to the change in fitness outcome experienced by each of the engaged organisms. In the context of my collaborative practice, the biological notion of fitness outcome is interpreted as the expressive range allocated to each performer and their respective media, while simultaneously relating to the level of determinacy from the score and choreography. The symbiotic modes of interaction are firstly described through examining three contemporary precedents, each showcasing distinct approaches in collaboration and use of gesture recognition technologies (GRT), followed by a practical demonstration of each mode by its activation during a practice outcome resulting from my collaborations with two dancers, including a detailed analysis of the developed interactive system and its principles of its operation.