╳ The ‘Chunky Move’ dance Company was founded by Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek in 1995; and Mortal Engine, their latest incarnation, which premièred at the Sydney Opera House in 2008, is a distinct and unpredictable genre-defying dance performance. The Company’s work is both diverse in form and content; and to date they have created a number of works for the stage and specific sites.
╳ Mortal Engine is a dance-video-music-laser performance using movement and sound responsive projections to portray an ever-shifting world in which the limits of the human body are an illusion. Projections react to the dancer's moving body, graphically illuminating and extending it. Graphics are based on a ‘video tracking’ of performers’ body outlines in real time, which results in a laser projection of those outlines. The laser and video images have an almost brutal relationship to the sound they illustrate and when experienced alone their connection with the dancers is not immediately apparent, however when experienced together with the dancers’ movements, they become a powerful extension to the performers’ bodies.
╳ Frieder Weiss, a software engineer, created ‘EyeCon’ and ‘Kalypso’ video motion sensing programs especially for use with dance, music and computer art and accordingly his interactive systems make it possible for instruments and bodies that generate light, video, sound and movement to all share a common language and respond to each other.
╳ Mortal Engine has no pre-rendered video, light or laser images. The music mix is open, allowing various sounds to be completely generated from movement data. In addition, pre-composed phrases are triggered by the dancers’ motion or by the operator in relation to where the performers are in any given sequence. This essentially means that there are no fixed timelines and the production flexes according to the rhythm of the performers. And, while the scenes are always performed in the same order, the work is truly live every night, not completely predictable and ever changing which truly reflects life.
╳ To learn more about this genre-defying dance company please follow the link below.
╳ chunkymove.com
╳ Mortal Engine is a dance-video-music-laser performance using movement and sound responsive projections to portray an ever-shifting world in which the limits of the human body are an illusion. Projections react to the dancer's moving body, graphically illuminating and extending it. Graphics are based on a ‘video tracking’ of performers’ body outlines in real time, which results in a laser projection of those outlines. The laser and video images have an almost brutal relationship to the sound they illustrate and when experienced alone their connection with the dancers is not immediately apparent, however when experienced together with the dancers’ movements, they become a powerful extension to the performers’ bodies.
╳ Frieder Weiss, a software engineer, created ‘EyeCon’ and ‘Kalypso’ video motion sensing programs especially for use with dance, music and computer art and accordingly his interactive systems make it possible for instruments and bodies that generate light, video, sound and movement to all share a common language and respond to each other.
╳ Mortal Engine has no pre-rendered video, light or laser images. The music mix is open, allowing various sounds to be completely generated from movement data. In addition, pre-composed phrases are triggered by the dancers’ motion or by the operator in relation to where the performers are in any given sequence. This essentially means that there are no fixed timelines and the production flexes according to the rhythm of the performers. And, while the scenes are always performed in the same order, the work is truly live every night, not completely predictable and ever changing which truly reflects life.
╳ To learn more about this genre-defying dance company please follow the link below.
╳ chunkymove.com
