For this week of movement investigations, I decided to continue to experiment with sound. Rather than move forward with making sounds myself, I decided to play around with an online platform I found on the internet called Typatone. Typatone is an app and website that allows you to “make music while you write.” It was developed by graphic artist and computer programmer, Jonathan (Jono) Brandel.

To instigate my exploration of this sound-making software, I selected words that felt resonant with me at the moment. The first three words I experimented with were: revolve, receive, and resurface. These words are actually reflective of processes in the greater frame of my life I have been experiencing and it made this research a lot more fun and meaningful knowing that these words are not only a guideline as a movement prompt but providing me structure through sound. Here are two examples:

Using these as a jumping-off point was very different from creating sounds within my own body. The speed was a little intimidating at first, especially with the shorter words, but I found a kind of freedom in getting to choose which bleeps and bloops I wanted to stay with or leave behind in my exploration. The grounding word and, essentially, prompt for both the sound and the movement felt potent in my intention and in the result of what was flowing through me. Something interesting about this sound score I want to dive a little deeper into, is that the most used letters are at a higher tonality than less used letters. I’m interested in how this affects what I’m drawn to follow in the sounds and if I, too, am repeating certain things at a higher frequency in this way.

I had a lot of fun with revolve and receive. It made me think a lot about what I associate with those words. Revolve reminds me of the revolving doors at malls that are scary when you’re a kid and are unexciting as an adult. It reminds me of the planets and orbit. Receive made me think of embrace and gathering. I think gathering really took hold of me in my movement exploration of receiving. Receiving can be difficult, too. What does it mean to receive and not force output? What am I receiving? The sounds of the room, of the sound score, the textures of the brick wall, the support of my loved ones, information about my energy levels.

The word resurface resounded in a noticeably different way than the other words. It may have been because I switched up the strategy for typing in the word to slow down the rate of sound. It may also be because of the theme of water. My movement style has often been described as earth or water bender-y and I feel leaning into this and committing to it will take me somewhere unanticipated. I think resurface is also interesting because it can mean a lot of different things – is it a memory? is it something returning? a discovery from the deep? is it a pushing down or a floating up? is it the feeling of diving under a wave and coming up for air?

In constructing the “choreographed” draft of my piece, I decide to set half the movement and use an improvisational scheme for the other half. It will be interesting to see what my dancers come up with, too, when I am able to share this with them. For the set piece, I drew from the recorded videos of my movement research to the different word sounds. I picked things that I thought represented the idea or I remembered felt good in my body and experimented stitching them together different ways to establish some kind of flow. I set this draft to the song The Homeless Wanderer, which I felt fit this same idea that had been happening in the sounds produced by Typatone. The improvisational score I used for the second half was to let movements from the set phrase resurface, with an underlying score of continuing to experiment with timing – following or not following the musical sounds or words. I tried to imagine the returning of movements or movement ideas as waves crashing on a beach.

I rehearsed this through multiple times, watching each one back afterwards to see what things resonated in the run and which ideas appeared to dissipate. I am interested in trying to bring back the ideas that do not frequently return on their own in the improvisation. I am thinking about how I can alter the score to facilitate the resurfacing of things that are less comfortable. I am excited to continue workshopping this and building on the set phrase in order to provide more ideas to the dancer part of myself and my cast. I am VERY excited to see what everyone else will offer when we begin moving together.

I am still having a hard time not getting ahead of myself and trying to force a solidified concept or idea. It is feeling more and more urgent to commit to something, especially with the newly added aspect of a cast to direct. Having this draft does bring some comfort – I feel reinvigorated and recommitted to the process. Not knowing is taking me places.