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RDT

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Hello World: Jitter

My final project for my independent studies course in Jitter was to revisit a dance piece called "Hello World" that my wife, choreographer Jacque Bell, and I created back in October of 2012 for Repertory Dance Theatre here in Salt Lake City, Utah. (You can see an entry with still image and links to reviews here or another with a video of the performance here.) My major goal for this project was to explore the possibilities of Max/MSP/Jitter (with an emphasis on the latter...) for use in future dance and technology pieces, especially Dance Loops, the major project that Jacque, Nichole Ortega, and I are working on for this year and next.

I did two major things for this Jitter project:

  1. Worked with several different visual effects within Jitter (as facilitated by the Vizzie modules); and
  2. Experimented with using a hardware controller – a Korg nanoKONTROL2, in this case – to manipulate video in real time.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and I think there's a lot of potential there. I'll spend the next several months learning ways to work out the kinks in the patch, as not everything worked reliably, and learning how to use other hardware, such as my Kinects, Novation Launchpads, Akai APC40 and 20, KMI Softstep and QuNeo, as well as the projectors, etc. (That's the nice thing about grant money – you can get some excellent gear!)

The major lesson is that it is much, much, much easier to do a lot of this in Max/MSP/Jitter than it is in Processing, which is what I have been using for the last two or three years. The programming is easier, the performance seems to be much smoother, and the hardware integration is way, way easier. (I find it curious, though, that there are hardly any books written about Max/MSP/Jitter, while there are at least a dozen fabulous books about Processing. Go figure.)

I've included a few still shots at the top of this post and a rather lengthy walk-through of the patch (where not much seems to be working right at the moment...) below.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/NR_mlAQUipM]

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Hello World at RDT

Jacque (my wife the choreographer) and I were invited to create a dance/technology piece for Repertory Dance Theatre, one of Utah's major modern dance companies, to be included in their fall show, Embark, on 04-06 October 2012. It was a great experience! We called it "Hello World," after the computer programming exercise that always represents the first step when learning a new language. (See the Wikipedia entry on "Hello World" programs here.) I created the visuals that were projected during the performance (mostly in Processing) and did the sound design (lots of white noise involved).

Here are some previews/reviews:

In addition, two artistic directors who shall remain unnamed said it was the best use of projections that they had ever seen in a dance performance! (Secret to success: Don't compete with the dancers.)

(Also, RDT published a study guide for teachers, in which all of the pieces in the show are described. The PDF is available here.)

I hope this is the first of many, many more things to come.

UPDATE: See the video in the post "Hello Word" video from RDT (now with audio!)"

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Repertory Dance Theatre: Vanguard

   

 

As a public service announcement, I wanted to let every single one of you know that Repertory Dance Theatre, one of Utah's three major professional dance companies, is having its season opener this weekend (6-8 October 2011). RDT is a modern dance company that, in addition to creating new works, also has the unique mission of preserving the history of modern dance.

In this spirit, their first performance, called "Vanguard," features several historically significant works: Scramble by Merce Cunningham (1968, and with sets by Frank Stella!), and Trio A (1966) and Chair Pillows (1969) by Yvonne Rainer. The concert also features a new composition by the RDT dancers themselves.

My wife, Jacque Bell, is a modern dance choreographer and dancer who has long time connections with RDT. Also, I have been on the company's board of trustees for several years. (As part of that responsibility, I have been pursuing a pet project to have the US Congress declare RDT a Living National Treasure! We'll see how that goes.)

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