- Performance presented at Nime 2019 – Selected performances https://www.ufrgs.br/nime2019/
- Music composition, performance and concept: Luiz Naveda
- Wearables, concept and garment design: Natacha Lamounier
- Dance: Luciana Paludo
The music performance Verse n.1 is a contemporary music/dance performance that involves original music for hand interface and musician, a computer audio system, a dancer and a wearable mechanical interface. Together with the music interface for the hands, the wearable interface called “Reversa” changes the surface of the dancer’s dress and creates an environment for interactive multisensory improvisation. See video of the performance below:
The performance is inspired in the elements of butoh dance and elements of non-western minimalism. The butoh can be seen as a dance improvisation method, a dance form, or a meditative practice. It emerged in the late 1950’s in Japan, developed by Tatsumi Hijikata and continues to be highly influential among contemporary dancers. The performance borrows expressive elements of butoh that help to shed light to minimal choreographic actions, which relate to changes in the sound texture and mechanical movements in the dress of the dancer. The performance shifts the focus of the dancer from the audience to a self-reflective practice: mind-body attention to sound and haptic sensory stimuli. Although the dance follows an improvisatory character, the performance is organized according to the temporal structure of the original music. The musical composition entitled “Verse n.1” depicts 5 sections: (1) presentation (dancer in free improvisation), (2) insistence (dancer in tension), (3) first solo (hands control dancer), (4) second solo (dancer alone or music follows dancer) and (5) duo (free dance improvisation). The total length of the performance is approximately 12 minutes and tessiture is composed by a layer of chords that can be played by any plucked polyphonic instrument or playback and an improvisation layer, played by means of samples attached the hand interface.
See the gallery of the performance realized in the Nime Conference in June 2019:
