Project with Johanna Ciampa

In the spring of 2023 I did a series of workshops with dancer and choreographer Johanna Ciampa from Montana (US) developing an interactive performance entitled Moving, Listening and Being: An Iterative Process. The performance featured 3D sonic landscapes with elements controlled by the dancer with the use of body-worn sensors and an interactive digital instrument. The workshops were a part of Ciampa’s Master project, which she submitted at the international Choreomundus program Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage spring/summer’23.

The topic of the performance was how human activities pose threats to aquatic life, using the coral as point of focus for the dramaturgy of the performance.

The main ideas and concept in the project were Ciampa’s, and my role was to be a co-creator and off-stage co-performer with responsibility for the interactive audio technologies involved. In the performance, Ciampa embodied the character of an adult-stage coral in a fjord. She then controlled an interactive instrument intended to portrait an unhealthy coral gradually coming back to good health. Accompanying the coral sounds were sounds of differently sized ships as well as aquatic life - the former thanks to a set of bioacoustic recordings from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø.

The performance took place in Music Technology’s Portal (Fjordgt.1 campus) at NTNU in front of a small, invited audience. We used the 20.2 speaker setup I have put up there, using MIDAS-M32 mixer and a Mac Mini running Reaper with ICST ambisonics fourth order plugins to spatialize the sounds. My interactive instruments were integrated in a VST plugin made with Csound and Cabbage. Three NGIMU sensors (x-io) were used to track Ciampa’s movements.