Living Space was a large scale multimedia performance commissioned by Hillyer College to celebrate the opening of the Shaw Center, a new building on the University of Hartford campus. I organized and led a team of student dancers, percussionists, and media artists to create a work that would celebrate the new building.
Percussionist played the building’s surfaces, and in doing so, triggered processed sounds derived from the building itself. My InPercussion mallets were used to play pitched materials. Dancers also triggered processed sounds simply by moving throughout the space. Special wristbands pinpointed the dancers’ locations, while a motion capture program tracked their movement.
Like the audio, the choreography also held a strong relationship with the building. The dance material was inspired by architectural cues within the building, all while representing the pedestrian nature of students, who would soon use the space for studying and collaboration.
Video of the building was played on two monitors during the installation. The video highlighted the juxtaposition of materials and colors within the Shaw Center and reacted to the amplitude at which the percussionist played.
The performance relied on four pieces of custom software running on a network of four computers. In addition, I used my iPhone to monitor and control specific parameters.
While the improvisatory nature of the piece was created to reflect the flexibility of the Shaw Center space, the collaborative nature of the piece hopes to inspire future University of Hartford students to use the Shaw Center to engage in cross-disciplinary work.