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Re: dancers




On Nov 23, 2004, at 3:22 PM, Olivier Malhomme wrote:

> "I can understand the dance troupe not wanting to be
> upstaged by flashy 'look-at-moi' playing, but if they
> didn't want the music to convey rhythmic information
> or melodic structure, did they give you any sort of
> clue as to what they DID want it to consist of?"
>
> Mmmm that wasn't so simple.
> The music was not improvised (playback during the dancing).
> What the leader of the troupe knew was what she did not like... when 
> she
> heard it, if you catch me.
> I was back to the "drawing board" twice a week.
>
> hard times, huge experience.
>
>

Wow, just caught this one.

I worked with dancers in a class at California Institute of the Arts.   
Composers and choreographers paired off and worked.

The class was a real pain in the ass because Mort Sobotink, who taught 
it along with someone from the dance department (can't remember name) 
seemed to battle each other over dominance.

The parings were good and twice I got paired with an Asian dancer 
dealing with Asian girl angst and I can do that for some reason.

We cooked some music up together through improvising in the studio and 
they ordered various levels of activity and spoke about it to me where 
I would go into the studio and compose multitrack.  Somehow it all 
worked both times.

A third time was some structured improvisation that flew sometimes.  We 
had to force the class teachers to let us just stinking improvise.  
We'd just ask nice and then they'd leave and argue somewhere else.

I preferred working with dancers over other multimedia.  I still do.  
Love to watch the bodies move with music.  It's so natural.
Larry Cooperman
New Millennium Guitar
http://www.newmillguitar.com