Whilst in Brazil, in winter 2010, I had the pleasure of being introduced to choreographer / dancer Lu Favoreto. We were connected by a mutual friend because of a coincidence in our shared fascination with using the inner guts of a piano to create artworks. With her Dance Company, Cia.8 Nova Dança,  Lu created the beautiful work “Pianissimo”. In which a connection was made between the strings of the piano and the stave of a musical score. Using lighting to create thin lines on the floor, the bodies of the dancers became metaphors for musical notes. This has a conceptual link to my work, Piano Migrations, in that the movement of birds on telegraph lines become  musical notes that play the piano strings.

On December 8th 2010, myself and Matthew Olden spent a day working with Lu, the Dance company, and musicians improvising around these ideas. I created projections on the floor, mixing imagery live and working closely with the lighting designer, and Matthew sampled the live instrumentalists to create sonic echos and resonances. It was an improvised conversation between movement, light, images and sound.

This improvisation became the subject for an experimental video workshop lead by  Raimo Bendetti and Gabriela Greeb. People came along to film the improvisation, and then work creatively with this footage to produce a documentary artwork. Raimo and Gabriela set up a live feed of the floor projections and the dancers onto another wall, and also filmed that, so there were many resonances and echos of the movement and imagery.

It was a wonderful experience. A great opportunity to share creative ideas and methods of improvisation with such interesting and creative people. The day was organized by StudioIntro in partnership with Estudio Luzia, and we are extremely grateful for their support and to everyone involved.

Here is the documentary of the day

Here is a video of “Pianissimo’ by Cia.8 Nova Dança