This presentation discusses composing works for audio-visual live performance based on the author’s physical theatre works, created in collaboration with a choreographer and visual artist Bettina Hoffmann.
Throughout collaborations called People in the Dunes Project between 2018 and 2020, the objective was exploring methodologies for composition, focusing on body movements as a media for not only sound conveyance and embodiment of music (cf. instrumentalists) but also visual art. Therefore, it addresses the question of what is the expressional possibilities with live aural and visual components through human physical representation and their interactions.
For designing interactive relations between sound and physical movements, two different methods were employed: in People in the Dunes I boundary microphones and a Kinect device were used for livesound capturing and motion tracking. On the other hand, in People in the Dunes II synthesised sound and fixed-media sound materials were applied to be controlled and modified by physical gestures, tracked by variety of iPhone sensors, that have been equipped originally. These technical comparisons also examine different usage of physical movements as well as possibilities of theatrical representations.
Haruka Hirayama (Ph.D.) is a composer from Murakami, Niigata, Japan. She studied composition and computer music with Profs Cot Lippe and Takayuki Rai at Sonology Department, Kunitach College of Music in Tokyo and received a B.A. and M.A. She also completed the research programme of Electroacoustic Composition at NOVARS Research Centre of the University of Manchester under the supervision of Prof. Ricardo Climent. She was awarded the Residence Prize at the 32nd International Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art (IMEB/Bourges, France) in 2005, and the Pauline Oliveros Prize at the Search for New Music by Women Composers Competition (IAWM/US) in 2012. Her activities as a composer are diverse including composer-in-residence at the Institute for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden (EMS), commissions from Chaotic.moebius (Plattform für neue und experimentelle Musik in Basel) or various performers, and her works have been selected and performed at multiple international festivals and conferences. Currently she teaches computer music and interactive performance at the Hokkaido Information University.
