“M” – performance study
“M”
is the name of a collaboration project started in 2008 by Federico Bonelli and Benedetta Mazzotti, dancer and choreographer actually graduating from the National Academy of Dance in Rome.
Before being a defined project “M” has been a loose theme of research. The general idea that set the guideline for this collaboration was to use a single transformation principle to draw all the materials of a performance: sound to modulate the light, light to move the character, movement principles to create the movement of the choreography and all patterns connected back to the sound in a feedback process. Moreover we wished to use of the same algorithmic key to derive all the processes inside the performance.
The collaboration between Federico and Benedetta started in Piombino for a work in a performance for the eXperimenta festival in 2008.
STEP ONE
The focus of the principal idea for Piombino’s performance whas sinesthesia, and for this purpoise Federico started developing his light-shaker, and instrument capable of translating the sound vibration into correlate light vibrations, using the caustics of light concentrated by a moving mirror of water in a bowl and sound to shape the geometry of the water surface in recurring patterns.
This instrument saw various steps of development and was included into the performance “M”, previewed at the offucina festival in Spoleto that winter, and in the work done for the project SPQ, an ambient generative installation now running at Philips labs in Eindhoven. At that stage “M” saw the participation of Riccardo Bianchini, a very talented singer, capable of performing a type of resonating throat singing. Using the natural reverb and the voice of Riccardo we were able of creating a very peculiar atmosphere, were the low frequencies of the light shaking sound vibrations entered the space in a very transparent and organic way.
