My initial engagement and inspiration for this project were to continue working on the spatial audio application to interdisciplinary performances. Before this, I applied sonic movement to film in Axis Mundi. For a better understanding of the term ‘sonic movement’ and its contextualisation within the area of spatial audio, I remind to my doctoral work, here.

Alice’s idea was very suitable for a sonic movement application as she designed a performance space where the dancer would act in the middle and the audience stand/sit around them. This allowed me to design a performance arrangement to surround the audience, making it easier to effectively apply ambisonic technology to the sounds.

The collaboration with Alice was based on research on somatics, an aspect of her developing artistic and academic practice. The images projected from above the dancers should both create a carpet/floor upon which to move on and a textural sense, hiding and highlighting parts of their moving figures. On this textural research is where I designed my sounds. I have used low-frequency sounds, with wobbly and rough textures, to give a clear sensation of the presence of the sounds in the space.

The movements of the sounds were designed to cross the stage and the audience, to pass by in simple, slow diagonal, circular movements, or to sit still in certain areas as if the whole stage was resonating and modelling accordingly to the rhythms and directions dictated by the dancers.

Link to Alice’s documentation about the work