Dance Controlled Kinect Music (Part 1)

Since April 2011 I’ve been working solidly with the Microsoft Kinect, developing my software, Kinectar, to enable its use as a MIDI controller for performing music live. I’ve done a number of performances around Australia since I started the project, however, it’s safe to say that, although I would consider myself an electronic musician, I’m certainly no dancer. Enter, Paul…

Dancer, Paul Walker and I have joined forces to bring the Kinect controlled music concept into the world of contemporary dance. Recently we obtained a residency at PACT theatre (centre for emerging artists), where we spent the week developing different ways of implementing my Kinect music control system in a dance context.

My system is developed in Max and uses OpenNI drivers, OSCeleton and Ableton Live.

Kinectar/dance collab development (Sydney)

I’m currently up in Sydney working on a collaborative project with Sydney dancer Paul Walker at a week-long residency at PACT theatre.

We’re attempting to reverse the idea of dance being TO music, instead putting the power in the dancer’s hands (oh, that’s such a tag line right there), creating a feedback loop where the dancer is dancing to the music they’re creating by dancing (awesome!!)

The project aims to build up an array of content using my software, Kinectar, in the context of contemporary dance; continuing my goal of discovering new ways to use the human body as an organic music controller.

We have a showing at PACT theatre this Friday (17/02/12) @ 5.30pm. It will be a short, informal viewing, demonstrating the content we’ve been developing during the week and a session to ask us questions or give feedback about the development. So if you’re in Sydney, head down and say hi!