Restless is a virtual generative choreography that displays bodies of different ages moving to the powerful rhythm of street dance and electronic music. The piece is inspired from Los Angeles-born krumping and waacking dances. Krumping is a raw and energetic style composed of aggressive movements and facial expressions. By contrast, waacking is a style seeking the grace of early century movie stars by playing with the performers’ femininity and the geometry of their bodies. The organic transmission of those dances from older to newer generations strikes a balance between the constant evolution of the dances and the respect of their specific origins. In this spirit, this video work emerges from the encounter between the styles of two krumping and waacking dancers, and the potential of motion capture, videogame technologies, and sound synthesizers to generate original machine-based choreographies.
Restless is the first piece of ALMA’s new series Granular Movement that explores the potential of digital technologies for capturing and synthesizing human motion. This series hybridizes the use of cutting-edge motion capture and videogame technologies, in particular the ultra-realist Metahuman avatars, with the well-established sound and video practices of granular synthesis. The Granular Movement series is developed in collaboration with Montreal-based street dance artists.
Collaborator:
Marc-André Cossette
Axelle Munezero
Dancers:
Valérie Chartier
Marie-Reine Kabasha
Presentations:
Elektra BIAN 2022
Visuals:
Unreal Engine 5, Motion capture
Audio:
Modular synthesizers, Markov chains, Max4Live, Ableton live, drum machines, synthesizers
