Re: News release, upcoming Palindrome premiere

Nick Rothwell (nick@cassiel.com)
18 Feb 1998 15:16:44 -0000

> Nick, and all for that matter, a video would answer many of your
> questions.

German videos would be PAL, yes?

> We began with a largely completed score. We then reverse-engineered
> it, so to speak, to find ways to realize it through dancers'
> movements.

OK, now I understand. (This "reverse-engineering" is a process I refer
to as "framing" - turning a score into a set of elements with control
points.)

It would be interesting to compare the resulting score from different
dance performances. One issue you didn't answer (I don't think): how
much attention do the dancers have to pay to the sounds that they're
making (or that each other are making)?

> What you may be getting at is "how do we keep them in beat?" A very
> good Q. Something into which we have put a lot of study. I can
> tell you more about it later.

Actually, my experience is that this isn't too difficult to achieve -
the musical processes just have to synchronise themselves with
specific subdivisions of some continuous timecode or beat source.

> You seem to know more about this area than I. I mention the P2 to
> say th at the sounds, the raw material of our music, is
> "traditional" classical instruments.

That answers my question. The Proteus 2 was designed and marketed as
a fixed, affordable MIDI-capable source of good quality orchestral
samples, and came to market about ten years ago before high-capacity
samplers became cheap and ubiquitous. However, there is no way I could
refer to the P2 as a "synthesiser."

> You should see our video. I think it would answer a lot of your questions.

Maybe I should buy a copy to add to my growing dance video library
(which currently consists of a single copy of Rosemary Butcher's
BODY AS SITE).

-- 
        Nick Rothwell, CASSIEL            contemporary dance projects
        http://www.cassiel.com            music synthesis and control

NOTICE - this vessel has triple screws - keep clear of blades