Dark Around the Edges (1997)
A Collaboration with Walter Ferrero
Supported by a Grant from the Rhode Island State Arts Council
Dark Around the Edges
"Dark Around the Edges" uses a digital motion tracking system to create music and sound in direct response to a performer's movements on stage. The work showcases choreographer Walter Ferrero’s physical humor, using very precise movements to play specific sounds and trigger musical processes. This is Winkler’s first work using the Very Nervous System (VNS), a device created by artist David Rokeby to analyze movement within a space using one or two video cameras. Each section experiments with a different movement-to-sound concept in a direct way: triggering individual sounds, starting or stopping musical responses that are improvised by the computer, or physically mixing a pre-determined multi-track composition by controlling the volume on each track. Each section tries to take into consideration the physics and mechanics of movement in order create an engaging and believable response.
Detailed Description
"Dark Around the Edges" uses a digital motion tracking system to create music and sound in direct response to a performer's movements on stage. The work showcases choreographer Walter Ferrero’s physical humor, using very precise movements to play specific sounds and trigger musical processes. This is Winkler’s first work using the Very Nervous System (VNS), a device created by artist David Rokeby to analyze movement within a space using one or two video cameras. Each section experiments with a different movement-to-sound concept in a direct way: triggering individual sounds, starting or stopping musical responses that are improvised by the computer, or physically mixing a pre-determined multi-track composition by controlling the volume on each track. Each section tries to take into consideration the physics and mechanics of movement in order create an engaging and believable response. lessmore
Related papers: Motion-Sensing Music: Artistic and Technical Challenges
Creating Interactive Dance with the Very Nervous System
WALTER FERRERO - BIO
Walter Ferrero, a French citizen with a Spanish mother, an Italian father, a Swedish wife, and two American boys, is fluent in four languages. From working as a chef in Paris, to a performance artist in the city's subways, Ferrero made his way to the United States in search of a theater education. After graduating from Trinity Rep Conservatory, he spent two years with Sweden's Earth Circus Theater Company. He eventually returning to Rhode Island to became a founding member of the award winning Everett Dance Company. Among their honors, Everett recently received the 1996 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement, the first Pell Award for Dance, and numerous grants from the Rhode Island State Arts Council of the Arts. Beyond Everett, Ferrero maintains a career as a professional clown/stilt walker, teaches creative movement for youths and recently premiered Roll, a piece for four dancers on in-line skates.
1. Machine Motion
This example is from the opening, establishing a clear one-to-one mapping between movement and sound using machine-like movements and repetition. Ferrero’s plays the space as a musical instrument, with precise rhythms resulting from his movements.
2. Scarves
Scarves are used to start and stop musical processes in four specific locations and also trigger immediate percussive sounds. All other locations are silent. The location and function of the special triggers are: the top-left space (cymbal crash) turns everything off, the middle-right space (cracking sound) starts a percussion sequence that responds to speed, the top-middle space (triangle) starts a quiet marimba-like sequence, bottom-left space triggers fast grace notes with bell sounds, the length of the phase determined by speed.
3. Frankenstein
Metal and industrial sounds accompany machine-like movements. The weight and speed of each part of the body is reflected in sound.
