Improvisation as a Creative Dialogue

IMPROVISATION AS A CREATIVE DIALOGUE ODED BEN-TAL AND CAROLINE WILKINS INTRODUCTION N ITS CURRENT FORM, a performance of Zaum: Beyond Mind opens with a bare stage. Soft light illuminates two small tables. A laptop is placed on one and a bandoneon on the other. Four speakers are located at the corners of the room. The first sounds are vocal utterances from Caroline—whistles, whispers, laughter—but she is not visible to the audience. The voice is amplified with some modulation, but this electronic counterpart is mixed very low. She is the first to enter the stage, still vocalizing, wearing a golden gown and a wireless microphone on her head. She approaches the laptop and presses the keyboard to trigger descending glissando electronic sounds. She moves to the front of the stage area I 22 Perspectives of New Music where another spotlight illuminates her. Oded enters behind her back, walking slowly to the laptop. Let’s pause here and consider some of the elements described above. The first important aspect is the audio-visual—we are concerned in this piece with the notion of sound theater (Heile 2006; Vear 2009), which aims to redress the balance between the visual and aural components prevalent in many multimedia performances, drawing attention to the phenomenological qualities of sound, music, and theater. A theater of sound also aims to re-evaluate the relation between score and performance inherited from music-theater practice in the light of new technological developments over the last twenty years. Essentially, it is an experimental, interdisciplinary concept that combines field recordings, live computer music, mental imagery evoked from sound, and a multimedia theater performance environment. These theatrics of sound start with the stage setting—creating a visual equivalency between the bandoneon and the laptop. As the first sounds emerge, their acoustic source hidden and electronically transformed , Caroline enters, ‘plays’ the computer and moves to the front of the stage area; we are signaling to the audience the importance of location, space, and action in (our) musical performance. This paper will highlight how ideas about sound theater shape our work process and our performances. Another important element is our approach to composition with interactive electronic components. In most cases where a performer (or EXAMPLE 1: STAGE-SET, ZAUM: BEYOND MIND Image: Amna Hafeetz Improvisation as a Creative Dialogue 23 performers) on stage interacts with a computer, the computer is located in the audience and not on stage. This reflects a division of labor—the composer’s work was mostly finished when the rehearsal process began. Perhaps some small changes happened in rehearsal in order to render the composer’s ideas more effective. The concert is the performer’s time in the spotlight and the composer becomes the assistant . As this paper will show, our approach shares some attributes with this process but is also very different in important respects. Finally, “In its current form” refers to the fact that this is an evolving project. We continue to develop new ideas and refine elements we currently have. We are also adapting our performance to each individual context (the space, the audience, the program). The role of improvisation, both as part of the performance as well as in the process of melding our creativity together to shape the piece, is crucial in arriving at such an adaptable format. We consider the performance as an interplay between three participants: (1) Caroline performing on the bandoneon, piano, and vocally, (2) Oded operating the computer, and (3) the computer itself, acting as a semi-autonomous agent. The live sounds from Caroline are fed into the computer through two microphones—a contact microphone mounted on the bandoneon and a wireless vocal microphone allowing her the freedom to move about the space and use visual gestures. Musical material, the dramaturgy of the piece, and the software created were all shaped by a give-and-take relationship between us as we explored different ideas and combinations, listened and responded to each other, and engaged in reflection and analysis of the emerging composition. In this paper we will examine from different angles the role of improvisation in the creation and performance of our piece. First we...