Re: dancing loops

[RandomLFO@aol.com]

     Hi Mathias. I am glad to hear that you are playing for dance.You have some great insights in regards to working with dancers. As a professional Dance accompaniest (VCU Dance Dept./Richmond Ballet/Henrico HS/Latin Ballet of VA/ Yoga classes...), I greatly encourage all musicians to at least try working with dancers. For Loopers, Improv would be the best place to start. However, someone that was very adept a adjusting tempos and meters on the fly, may consider playing for technique classes as well. Mixed meter phrases would be very difficult to work with on a looping device though. 
     Along with technique classes, I have played for many Improv classes over the years. For some time I incorporated a Digitech RDS 7.6, then added a Jamman. The RDS 7.6 was great because it's delay time knob, of course, also changed the pitch of the loop. I could start with an approximately 2 or 4 second loop, then take it down to 7.6 seconds. This usually gave me a good, dark bed of ambient sound to layer over, or fade in and out of. With 2 loopers, asynchronous looping is particulary great for dance Improv. In most cases though, Improv likes to have a lot of change. Contact Improv is a somewhat different animal. In contact Improv you generally will find that you can change your soundscapes more gradually. 
     Live performance is of course very different than a classroom situation. Live Improv is where the most joy is. It is also the most challenging. 
     I will be doing a live improv with dancers and 2 other percussionists early next month. I don't know yet if we will be adding any looping into it. If we do, I will bring along my H3500DFX. 
     Take care, Marc  

In a message dated 9/20/2002 4:27:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time, matthias@grob.org writes:


> I want to talk about what I know reasonably well: Improv with dancers
> Looping is perfect for that, because it provides a precise repetitive 
> part they can rely on and the freedom for the musician to illustrate 
> the interpretations of the dancers.
> It starts at the dancing lessons. I think many musicians could do 
> that. Its not so demanding in the details and a brilliant way to 
> practice, since you immediately see what you do! ** You have a public 
> of artists ** ! Dancers are used to understand music and will extract 
> the useful part of what you do.
>
> Even if you dont play very well, as soon as you manage to follow the 
> instructions of the leader of the group, setup some rhythm at the 
> right speed and start and stop decently when its needed, you are more 
> useful than CDs.
> If you can also interpret some of the details of the movement, they 
> love you! Just put some accent where arms flow in the air, a quick 
> line where they run, a dark sound when they are on the floor... with 
> time you go deeper...
> If you can also feel the mood of the movement and put the right sound 
> and can do smooth changes from one mood to the other to create a 
> story, you deserve payment :-)
> Then the real improv starts: Interaction as you know it from playing 
> with other musicians, only that you are free to change harmonies and 
> themes as you please. Suddenly the feeling comes up that no one 
> follows the others yet all are together in one story!
>
> I played for contact improvisation off and on for over a year now. 
> More and more it turns into a ritual, the story becomes more dynamic, 
> people let go their craziness. Its incredible refreshing also for me!
>
> Now I have been called again to improve a modern dance piece about 
> Peace I recorded the music for a while ago. The choreographer, former 
> diva at the city theater for 15 years, started to become interested 
> in improv. Before, she symbolized Peace as a flower, a mandala, a 
> complex circular arrangement of the dancers with a complex loop I 
> built according the form. It was beautiful, but now she sees Peace 
> not so organized and "heavy" any more, rather free, happy, light... I 
> could not agree more and supported her impression that this was best 
> expressed through improvisation. Now, what surprised all of us: The 
> dancers that were almost afraid of the improvisation learned to let 
> go in only 10 minutes!
>
> There is a trick to it: Start with some nicely educated loop and let 
> them all show how good they are. After a while they feel that this 
> does not lead anywhere, and you can follow this feeling by letting 
> the music fall down into some strange chaos which leaves space for 
> their unwill and depression. So there they start to let go. From 
> there the real thing can grow and usually most participants come 
> syncronized out of the chaos!
>
> Respectfully slowly abandon the original directions and restrictions 
> more and more while they like it, until you are totally free to fool 
> around. At the end of the second session they all built a pile in the 
> center and burst out in laughter!
> Then they started saying that they dont want to study anything fixed 
> any more, just enjoy...
>
> And you feel reeeealy useful ! :-)