rib

05_2014

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rib is a live set for dance and video. It is a collaboration with the video artist Arié Van Egmond that was first performed in Bruxelles in May 2014. The video consists on overlapped squares following, or opposing, simple descriptors sent from sound analysis [1].

The music consists on a long evolution of difference of listening styles. The audience first discovers hearing rhythms and ends up dancing on minimal techno. Although the process becomes less and less abstract, it almost keeps the same timbres and cadence all over the set. Rhythms are binary and they eventually become the trade mark of the piece.

Perception of pulsation has long been a complex question in contemporary music because of its reference with popular music and dance. I personally auto-censured myself as if I was not allowed to compose beats and “simple” music. It took many years to realize the quality of art could also stand in in some apparent pavlovian simplicity. Judgement is somewhere else. With Rib, the audience is transported from various ways of listening and reacting to music. People are often talking about “intelligent dance music” or “musique savante” [2]; I am with no demagogy looking for “intelligent dance” as being a genuine way of listening because it is also a rich culture that should not be depreciated.

The most danceable extract of Rib

There is a balance between four elements in the energy communication between performers and audiences. Intellectual action versus Intellectual action versus physical reaction versus intellectual reaction. The balance between action and reaction is an obvious relation during a performance. Intellectual or physical is a little more complicated because it involves considerations of involvement and interactivity.