Reflections: For interactive electronics, dancer, and variable instruments
Justin F. Houser · ThinkTech (Texas Tech University) · 2014
Reflections represents many developments in motion tracking for live electronic music. The work emphasizes many aspects of avant-garde composition including set based composition and indeterminacy. The current realization is set for piano, dancer, and electronics, however the instrumental portions can be arranged for any instruemtn. Through the use of the Microsoft Xbox Kinect and the program Max MSP, the ability to use tracking information from human movement to initiate electronic music events and manipulate various parameters imposed on those events in real-time becomes possible. Though the use of motion tracking for live electronic music has been available in the past, the use of the Xbox Kinecet has opened the door to make this technology more accessible to a wider range of composers, dancers, and artists. Reflections, therefore, becomes an ambiguous interdisciplinary work where the composer creates an interactive environment and the dancer, through their motions and individual choreography, creates and manipulates the music performed by the instrumentalist. Much of the work is derived from the composer’s interest in meditation and yoga, and focuses on creating a moving soundscape that directly interacts with the dancer and their decisions. The instrumental portion is a blend between traditionally notated scores, graphically notated scores, and collections of musical ideas from which the instrumentalist may compose a new work. By implementing motion tracking technology in such a way as to allow real-time interaction with electronics and instrumental performance, Reflections becomes an embodiment of interdisciplinary interaction and truly forms a meld between dance and music.