Origin8 (2017)

Origin8 was an interactive dance/media piece which utilized MYO sensing technology. This was a collaboration with Van Nort (music), Sinclair (visuals) and the National Ballet School of Canada (Shaun Amyot, choreographer). My work as composer centred around creating interactive music composition that was driven by the electrical muscle (myogram) and movement activity 21 dancers (hailing from 21 different countries) in collaboration with machine learning – a kind of biosensing and machine co-creation. The piece was created for the quadrennial Assembleé Internationale festival which brings together top Ballet schools and their select students internationally. In this work, the interactive music applied machine learning to the task of learning mappings between MYO sensing and sonic output. As part of the interactive musical composition, the overall musical structure emerged from the actions and movements of the dancers, so that each of the performances had an overarching form but differed in their details. There are four sections, and the (choreographic and musical) content from sections 1-3 are combined and layered in section 4. Below is a video taken during the dress rehearsal, just prior to the opening.

Credits:

Shaun Amyot (choreography)
Don Sinclair (interactive visuals)
Doug Van Nort (interactive music composition)