Interactive dance workshop with dancer Cora Gasparotti at Casa Paganini

May 27 and 28 2022 I hosted a workshop at Casa Paganini, Genova, with dancer and choreographer Cora Gasparotti and musician Giangiacomo Gallo visiting. Both are aspiring artists from Rome, where Gasparotti just graduated from Accademia Nazionale di Danza with a Master’s thesis about the use of interactive sonification in dance training. Gallo has a background from studies in electroacoustic composition and sound engineering, and is part of DiacronieLab, a group of musicians in Rome working with music and technology.

At the workshop we explored different technologies such as inertial sensors, EMG armbands (Myo) and stereoscopic 3D video tracking (MotionComposer). The workshop combined demonstration, discussion and practical exploration and improvisation, involving topics such as:

• different sensors’ strengths and weaknesses
• sensor communication
• sensor data treatment methods
• movement to sound mappings
• audience communication and involvement

We started by looking at the Myo armbands, and how data treatment methods such as scaling, filtering, noise gating and transfer functions can be used to have the best condition for developing an interactive instrument. Together we tested some simple mappings using the data from three of the electrodes to control sine tones and band pass filtered white noise, which Cora explored in a little improvisation. The first section of the video shows the result of the demonstration and discussion of points 1-4 of the list above.

Dancer Cora Gasparotti at Casa Paganini, UniGe

Next, we tested out several of the interactive instruments that I developed during my stay at the ZHdK fall 2021, applying Myo armbands and NGIMU sensors from x-io (left and right wrists plus torso). I explained how each of the instruments were related to the composition in which they appeared, Beginnings and Endings Study I, before Cora (and sometimes Giangiacomo) would explore freely, before making a short improv for the camera (see sections 2-5 of the video).

The second day we moved our attention to the MotionComposer version 3, where we tested out some beta features that will be released later this summer. Although the lighting conditions were far from ideal, we got to test out four of its five environments: Tonality, Drums, Fields and Particles (which I implemented on the device during the workshop with MotionComposer the preceding week). Cora made two videos playing the Tonality environment, one with a chromatic scale, the other with a pentatonic scale.