Ryan’s noise piece i found was incredibly interesting, and his quick walkthrough of using reaper for surround finally made me understand how to do surround in reaper. The lower valence parts felt incredibly hypnagogic and trance-like, and almost put me into a meditative state before snapping me right out with the larger and louder gunshots or loud sounds. The movement (with eyes closed) felt incredibly disorienting, and gave me a push and pull feeling between the sounds. I think experiencing it from the centre of the room could’ve made it more effective for my experience, but i still think it was engaging and effective nonetheless
The Sleepless Ones
no pre show music for audiences to habituate and acclimatise to the sound and then taking away – powerful?? Spoken word sets the stage, gives it an eerie feeling. Lighting moving with breath. subtle build in dramatic tension with sound, operatic also helps set the stage for the renaissance theming. starting in darkness and not showing the frame gives a sense of mystery until the final reveal – would audiences eyes adjusted and see the frame before its full illumination?? muisc and sound design almost feels like a forgotten memory, very sparse and ambient (wid in the trees esque),having the paper lit gives the audeince a tracking point, helps frame the frame without lighting it specifically. music choices start to feel more tradititonal of that romantic/renaissance period, sudden dramatic change in lighting and solo oboe creates a sense of isolation and loneliness, and snaps the audience of the trancelike state from teh dances previously – broken entrapment is jarring, keeps you on your toes, ambient pieces with the record crackle and almost lost soul sounds is uncanny and eerie, placing the audience in a heightened state of unease, this was also doing previously with the sudden change. the dancers being shrouded in black except for their heads and cuffs of their sleeves alomst creates an inhuman feeling and disconencts them from felix, acting more as seperate entities rather than people, lots of silence between acts makes it feel eerie, and then loud fade in of next cue takes audiences out but brings them right back in, almost feels unexpected. this is only the second time the frame is being lit, so helps reframe the narrative of the piece. the coloured light also helps give a new feeling to the piece, along with the quick flash of light, removing the rest of the light and only having the green makes felix feel inhuman, and in the final casting the shadow where the dancers hide helps create the uneasy and frankly scary reveal. removing the top half of the actors with the lighting for an inverse frame makes it feel they’re fighting for space, with drums providing a stable but unrelenting beat. finaly moving into the costumes, changing felix mid scene feels frantic and out of his control, and the tableaux scene is like he has finally become part of the painting. hes no longer moving of his own volition, but is now trapped in this painting. low and consistent rumbles create that unease from earlier with the AC sound effects. moving back to a frantic operatic piece in conjuction with the red and bright lights makes it feel like a descent into madness before settling back into the long drawn out sound effects, the red light into the normal lighitng with new costumes feels like the acceptance into the madness, and moves back into the ambient sound design. the marcato/pizzi string feels like a ticking clock counting to something evil, and the ambient strings are pushing and pulling and pulsing and acting like the force waiting to strike. felix moving out of hte frame feels like he is now no longer trapped within the confine of the frame, and the music and sound design has calmed down before he disappears into the frame. (i think this should’ve been the end, left it ambigiouous) The renaissance choral piece with the beating of the heart with the frame and the dancers bathed in the red light almost feels dream like. having the dancers on a platform feels like they are acually in the painting and have no been restricted. the post show song choice for vibes i think brings you back into the real life whilst still not being a complete resolution.
Ben Cobham’s use of low perception lighting and his manipulation of the frame i believe was incredibly well employed, especially by manipulating audiences eyes that would adjust to the lights and the lighting. Some parts i did find a bit boring purely because i do not understand the world of contemporary dance, and the modern day has ruined our attention spans, so by not being able to extrapolate SOME meaning out of the hour long show makes me want to hunt for narrative, and makes me frustrated when the piece does not have some narrative. I need to work on just sitting in the abstraction of piece.
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