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Looper's Delight
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Contact Improvision is a free-form dance method where two (or more) people are in constant contact with each other. The "point of contact" can be anywhere on the body, eg arm against neck, hip to back, etc. A large part of the practice is to keep this point(s) flowing between the dancers organically. Breaking the bounds between leading and following, upright and floor work, and generally ignoring gravity also are standard. Traditional, "pure" Contact is done without any music at all, the idea being that music would cause the dancers to move with it instead of each other. A very high degree of synchronisation and feedback is essential for Contact to work. The compromise between silent Contact Improv and a musically lead dance is to play such that the dancers do not entrain with you. This might mean playing without a compelling rhythm, or shifting rhythms, and so on. Definitely ambient and not attention-getting. In a community dance class or jam there is much more likely to be music, and for it to be "danceable" since the non-purist enthusists prefer this. This is the environment in which I'd like to play. I'm a bit in awe of the gentlemen describing their experiences accompanying academic dance classes, which sound more like modern dance than any Contact I've seen. Not my goal though. For midi input from the dancers or myself as I dance, I have the fairly simple idea of putting a potentiometer in some hand-held wrapper(how about a Nerf ball!) and using the MidiSolutions pedal-to-cc gizmo to tweak the looper or effects processor. This would require only the midi converter box, pot, and some wire to do(I think. Maybe also a six-pack to bribe some local electrical engineer. JW, what's your favorite brew? ;-) ) This would definitely _not_ be traditional Contact, but lots of fun! Yours in rhythm, Steve __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com