Moving Sound: New Relationships between Contemporary Dance

and Music in Improvisation

Dimitris Karalis
Ana Snchez-Colberg
Introduction:
This article revisits the relationship between music and dance, sound and movement
in contemporary dance and music in improvisation. The discussion evolves from the premise
that much of the history of 20th-21st century approaches to dance and music in improvisation
notwithstanding, or perhaps due to, the Cage-Cunningham collaborations- has been one of
diverging pathways - parallel and co-existing in some respects, but primarily one of
separation. Dance improvisation generally has reflected trends towards a 'somatic turn' that
promoted emancipation from music and its perceived theatricality and formal narrativity.
Consideration of dance and music in improvisation has remained the domain of vernacular
forms such as tap, flamenco, Indian dance (Cooper-Albright, A. & Gere, D. 2003). This
study proposes that after such period of mutual 'emancipation' much is to be gained from
bringing the knowledge discovered to inform the search for new relationships between the
two art forms, both in the process of improvisation as well as in performance. The main
philosophical thrust for the discussion draws from Peters, (2009) The Philosophy of
Improvisation. Peters argues that rather than a performance of risk taking and abandonment
in pursuit of 'freedom' (what he describes as a 'glorified love-in dressed up as art), true
improvisation requires a powerful memory, memory of the parameters of an instrument, of
the body, of available technology, the parameter's of a work's structure, and one's place within
it at any time, the parameters of an idiom, a genre and its history, its possibilities." (Peters,
2009, p.82). This idea, of the need to set parameters, understand rules, structures, as well as
ones positions within an improvisational process, will be central to the discussion.

1 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

The discussion proposes that in order to enter into a complex improvisation process
between dance and music we need to consider the particular 'given-ness' of dance and music:
what are its figures (features), its ground (contexts) and field (its coexistence/correlations in
time and space) . In the discussion figure will refer to the analogical analysis of movement
and musical structures, the ground refers to the context of each discipline (where they stand
conceptually in relation to notion of improvisation) at the moment that they come into
collaboration. Finally, field refers to the proposed new synthesis. In a study of kinematics and
sound Haga (2012) suggests it should be noted that the term similarity refers to phenomena
that bear a resemblance to each other. This implies that correspondences are basically not a
study of sameness; it is a study of similarities... (Haga, 2012, p.10). Therefore, analogies
between music and dance are reviewed through a 'post-formal' lens aligned to a complex
thinking that involves "openness, dialectical process, contextualization and on-going reevaluation" (Montouri, 2003, p. 252). Seen through this perspective what have been
considered 'formal structures' (historically perceived to alienate the subject's awareness from
the 'here-ness' of the moment- central to most understanding of improvisation) are returned
to their 'bodily-ness'; what previously had been considered opposites are hereby taken to be
poles within a continuum at the moment of improvisation.
The project Moving Sound, a collaboration between the writers, music director
Dimitris Karalis and choreographer Ana Snchez-Colberg together with
composer/saxophonist Yannis Kassetas is discussed as a case study. The project, which has
undergone a series of R&D stages since 2007, elaborates a common ground for practitioners
of both genres, in order not to co-exist through synchronic monologues, but to engage in
actual dialogues. The project has two inter-related strands, an exploration of the function of
composition and its role in free improvisation between dance and music. For this discussion
we will focus on the work on free improvisation. The practice that supports the discussion

2 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

involved a rich and varied group of dancers and musicians who gathered for six consecutive
days in April 2014: ten professional dancers, members of Compaia de Danza 21 (CoDa21),
one of Puerto Ricos premier dance companies, four musicians and the project leaders. The
dancers are mostly veteran dancers who started their careers as ballet dancers (all have
reached soloist status in their careers) and in later years have expanded their work to include
contemporary forms of dance as well as other body-based therapies (yoga, Pilates, etc.).
Significantly for the collaboration, the dancers had an understanding of music coming from
their classical training as well as skills in movement based improvisation, as the companys
repertory includes regular devised work with guest choreographers. Some of them also have
professional experience in other dance forms, for example jazz dance and salsa, a local
vernacular form of dance/music. The project involved five musicians, four members of a
local jazz group Guess Who, composed of one flutist, one percussionist, one piano player and
one bass player, and Kassetas, the composer, on the saxophone. The dancers have worked
with live music innumerable times; this was the first time that the musicians from Guess
Who were working with contemporary dancers. However, they have experience in jazz
improvisation. One of the musicians the bassist- also plays in local bomba jams, a local
Afro-Caribbean form of dance that involves improvisation between dancers, singers and
percussionists.

Opening thoughts on music and dance

We often see music and dance together without questioning their co-existence. As
listeners we are culturally predisposed to attend to rhythm and thematic melody. (For more
on the relationship between music, power and culture see Audio Culture: Readings in
Modern Music, Christoph Cox, Daniel Warner eds. 2004). We assume that it is natural to
listen to the beat, and move. In this case though, we are not talking about a real unity between

3 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

music and dance, an interchange of ideas and co-creation between the two. In this case music
is a closed system and dance is another. In this case (as in the Cage-Cunningham
collaborations), two individual systems happen at the same time, not intrinsically connected.
Most of the times, this unity is only based on external elements, or happens arbitrarily. Even
though the interconnections that might appear each time on the basis of chance might be
interesting, we can go deeper.
The urge to question the historically given relation between dance and music came
from our observation of jazz bands during improvisation. In jazz, improvisation can happen
only because there is a common language containing a complex set of rules based on
detailed elements that the participants share. In Jazz Theory (1995), one of the most
influential books on jazz improvisation, Levine describes how this common elements are the
ground that allows musicians to interchange specific roles, and most importantly, to establish
communication. Levines analysis of improvisation is founded upon the discussion of
structure- that is sequence, patterns and phrasing. Rhythm, scale, intonation, articulation,
nuance, intensity are only a few elements that are shared. Different to contemporary dancers,
jazz musicians not only bring technical knowledge, but also knowledge of the standards of
the jazz cannon, as well as a wide variety of musical patterns, phrases (licks), segments of
which are brought into the improvisation, embellished, transformed reconsidered:
Licks and patterns should become part of your musical unconscious,
kind of like an inner library you can draw upon. At the same time they
should not be your musical be-all and end-all (p. 250)
In that way improvisation remains entirely open yet through the potential use of structured
phrases, the participants can understand, co-compose and anticipate the next movement of the
leading instrument. This allows for a productive interpretation of origination and
regeneration as the new and the old are engaged with simultaneously (Peters, 2009, p. 2).

4 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

Significantly, the musical structures (and history) that the project brings into dialogue
with contemporary dance are those of contemporary Jazz - a musical form that not unlike
dance improvisation has pursued 'independence' from the 'constraints' of classical
composition and performance. Speaking of the early jazz improvisers Bogo (2002) notes that:
The primary musical bond shared between these diverse performers
is a fascination with sonic possibilities and surprising musical occurrences
and a desire to improvise, to a significant degree, both the content and the form
of the performance. In other words, free improvisation moves beyond matters of
expressive detail to matters of collective structure; it is not formless music-making,
but form-making music. (Bogo, 2002, p. 167)
It is important to note that this definition of free improvisation engages directly with notions
of structure and form, whereby the main aim is not collective expression (Peters love-in)
but actual form making. Peters goes as far as suggesting that the fundamental relationship in
improvisation is between "improvisor and improvisation, not between improvisor and
improvisor" (Peters, 2009, p.3).
In utilizing the idea of 'dialogue' the discussion moves beyond what has been referred
to as 'listening with the eye' - the conventional call-response of much improvisation involving
music - where interlocutors "are always looking for an opening in which to respond" (Peters,
2009, p. 123) to an understanding of dialogue as a 'listening of the ear' - whereby participants
listen to 'what is there' at the beginning of improvisation in which the given is given in evernew ways" (Peters, 2009, p. 120). Furthermore, Bradlyn (1991) suggests that
the first step in learning to listen is stopping still and opening our ears,
first to figure, next to ground, next to field. The field, the aggregate soundscape
is the most difficult to perceive [] [T]here must be a constant flux, a never fully
focused shifting among figure, ground, and field [...] One performers playing may
suddenly emerge as a stark figure against the ground of anothers only to just as
suddenly submerge into the ground or even farther back into the field as another voice
emerges (Bradlyn cited in Bogo 2002, p. 177).

5 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

It is important to note that amongst the aims of the project and related to
improvisational frameworks is the creation of an ensemble. We choose this word precisely
because of its literal meaning:
[musical] interconnectedness makes an ensemble more than just a collection of
individuals. Interactions in jazz involves the spontaneous and improvised musical
reactions of one musician to what another musician in the ensemble has performed.
Interactions can either be an isolated incident in which one musical statement elicits a
simple response or it can be an ongoing process in which one musical idea triggers a
response that prompts yet another responseIt can also be multi-dimensional,
interaction can involve all members of the ensemble. (Rinzler, 2008, p. 28)
If music and dance have developed apart for a long time, moving sound takes them back to
their roots.

The ground on which we stand

The history of dance's 'emancipation' from music en route to establishing itself as an
'independent' art for is well established - from the avant-garde experiments of the German
Expressionists (Wigman, Laban, Jooss) to Cunningham and Cage. It is commonly
understood that the Cage/Cunningham inheritance that has shaped contemporary dance
improvisational landscape is marked by a desire to resists a perceived 'mimeticism' between
music structures and movement vocabulary in the classical and modern dance traditions.
Furthermore, this legacy has been marked by a search for a democratic art making with an
emphasis on collective creation and collective authorship which stands in opposition to the
hierarchical structures embedded within a classical score. This tradition is perceived to be one
of an invisible supremacy of the composer (and by association the choreographer) where
dancers are 'instruments' and movements are 'notes' mirroring the musical score in an chain
of representation and narrativity.
Besides the Cage/Cunningham collaborations, there is evidence of other exploration
in sound and movement in improvisation. In the essay We Insist! Seeing music and hearing

6 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

dance Goldman (2010) brings to the fore the work of Judith Dunn and Bill Dixon, whose
work throughout the 1970s was based on jazz improvisational modes:
musicians and dancers were working as equals, meaning that the music was not an
accompaniment to the dance, and dancing wasnt just an explanation of the music.
The idea that they were both running parallel and interacting, was a key element of
their work (Goldman, 2010, p. 65).
Dianne McIntyre founded the dance company Sounds in Motion in 1972. Her work
grew out of Dixons and Dunns and is considered primarily in its capacity to act a practice of
freedom and protest. Little is known of the actual methodology, fragments of reviews refer to
McIntyres ability to translate the rhythms into different parts of her body (Goldman, 2010,
p. 87). For reasons that are cultural and political and touch upon issues of class, race and
gender at the time that these collaborations were taking place, critical response was not very
positive and their work has gone into oblivion. There is little left behind of their actual
processes to contribute significantly to methodological considerations of this article.
However, what is significant about Goldmans examination of these two cases of
improvisation to jazz music is her conclusion that there remains a pervasive bias that dance is
an art of the body and music is an art of the mind which goes someway to explain the
continuing separation of these two arts in the general zeitgeist of contemporary dance.
It is safe to generalise that in recent years in cases when music/sound enters into
improvisation with dance there is a marked preference for sounds landscapes and sonic
environments. The abstract and formal nature of musical structures seems to be at odds with
the actuality and physicality of the body in movement and the bodys presence on stage.
Work with music exists primarily in the domain of choreographer led work, the work of
Keersmaker and Reich, Davies and Bryars, Morris stand out. Therefore it seems that music
and dance in improvisation not only suffer from the bias of a perceived body/mind
dichotomy, their collaboration has suffered from what Gere (2003) defines as an on-going

7 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

divide between improvisation as a reflection and private discovery and composition (hence
choreography) with its demands for a rigour that goes against individual expressiveness and
freedom (Cooper-Albright A., & Gere, D. 2003, p. xv). This position seems at odd with the
definitions of improvisation-generally previously discussed.
Consequently, dance improvisation has been approached primarily from a perspective
that prioritises movement-based somatic state guided by proprioception. This approach
favours the focus on a 'world-inside' based on the improvisers aesthetic reactions to their
own moving, a listening 'within skin' (De Spain, 2003, p. 31). This perspective is supported
by another factor and that is a recurrent reference to a pre-linguistic state, one of pure
presence in the moment. Recent studies of presence in performance strongly argue against
this pre-linguistic state as a precondition for presence (a position normally underscored by
mis-reading or partial readings of phenomenology) as any act of presence is always encoded
with cultural intertexts that complicated the experience of the present (Power, 2008 p. 205).
Foster (1994) suggests a different approach to improvisation, one that chimes with
Peters position previously discussed and opens up the path to a more complex engagement
with music as proposed in Moving Sound. Foster suggest that improvisation requires a state
of bodymindfulness that rather than suppress any function of the mind summons up a kind
of hyperawareness [a word also used by Peters] of the relationship between immediate
action and overall shape, between that which is about to take place and that which has and
will take place (Foster, 1994, p. 7). She goes on to suggest that it is a careful back and
forth between the unknown and the known a known that includes any overarching
structural guidelines that delimit the improvising bodys choices, such as a score for
performance, or any set of rules predetermined in advance ... The known includes any allied
medium with which the performance is in collaboration, such an improvisation among
musicians and dancers.. (Foster, 1994, p. 4)

8 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

It is this possible allegiance in Fosters terms that Moving Sound explores in detail:
how do we bring music structures and dance to work together again? can musical structures
be aligned to bodily structures so that they share present themselves as part of the bodymindfulness suggested by Foster? What would happen if the notion of form-making as is
understood in free jazz improvisation is brought to bear upon movement and sound
improvisation?
The allied relationship suggested by Foster and evolved in Moving Sounds begins
with recent developments in the understanding of sound, motion and the body. These
underpin the methods of the project. In the essay Cognition and the Body (2004) Bowman
discusses the ways in which sonorous experience is invariably corporeal, and it is
distinguished from other semiotic experience by its links to muscle, movement and action'
(Bowman, 2004, p. 17). Bowman argues that musical properties which many consider as
structural devices are in fact bodily constituted: tension and release, dissonance and
consonance, volume, balance are all consonant with the reflective language of body-based
improvisation. Therefore, music material rather than appearing as an alienating force in
improvisation actually has the potential to return focus to the body actively guiding,
shaping, facilitating, enabling (Bowman, 2004, p.26) both dancers and musicians. Bowman
notes that the relationship between sound and body is reciprocal, structures move the body,
equally there is a human capacity for cross modal transfer, a natural gift for mapping
structures, patterns and gestures from our embodied experience and action onto inviting
sonorous material (Bowman, 2004, p. 19). There is already a reciprocity that invites a
common ground to be established in order to achieve a synthesis, not parallelisms: a synthesis
in which motion and sound participate equally, as performing elements of one common
system. Within moving sound we can compose movements of bodies and instruments

9 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

practically on the same score, and thus enrich the ways that we understand and achieve the
interrelation between motion and sound, movement and dance.

Figures in a landscape
The process of improvisation began by questioning (and then establishing) a field of
common knowns across dancers and musicians. What do musicians bring into the
improvisation? What do dancers? We began by looking at what musicians bring into an
emergent common system. We selected basic music structures in order to start the
collaboration in such a way that dancers became familiar with the knowns of a jazz
ensemble, the musical structural elements of jazz improvisation in order to evolve the
common system. These were rhythm, pitch, volume, articulation and phrasing. These musical
knowns were cross-mapped to fundamental knowns in dance. The primary tool that we
chose was Labananalysis and in particular the four effort factors. It is well documented, that
Labans studies in movement harmony were highly influenced by music harmony:
Between the harmonic components of music and those of dance,
there is not only an outward resemblance, but a structural congruity, which
although hidden at first, can be investigated and verified, point by point.
(Laban, n.p. cited in Moore, 2009, p. 189).
In a manner that echoes Hagas previous discussion of similarities, Moore (2009) proposes
that Laban seemed to have been employing an analogic metaphor... [that] combines analogic
modelling with the imaginative function of metaphoric thinking (Moore, 2009, p. 189). She
clarifies further: an analogic metaphor is a controlled comparison in which the analogue
model (in this case dance) shares with the original model (in this case music harmony) the
same structure and pattern of relationships (Moore, 2009, p. 189).
The first element of structuring the audible in relation to the kinetic is rhythm which
Jordan (2005) considers as a principle of organization common to music and dance (p. 23.
Arguably in dance improvisation this organizing capacity of rhythm is more prevalent in

10 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

forms such flamenco, tap, Indian dance and other vernacular forms, where the connection
between the beat and gesture (step) is the fundamental motivation of the dance form.
Speaking of Flamenco, Heffner- Hayes (2003) comments: In Flamenco, the shape of the
improvisational event is contained by the rhythmic structure and a dynamic of building
complexity (Heffner- Hayes, 2003, p. 112). Heffner-Hayes points to the important fact that
Flamenco improvisation demands that the internal structure and the outer appearance of the
event resemble established flamenco (Heffner- Hayes, 2003, p. 114). However in contrast,
in our work, we aimed to cultivate the ability in the mover to hold on an esoteric sense of
duration, which contradicted the exoteric. In order to achieve this we began exploring simple
structures: a walking pattern done to the shifting of duration of movement from 2/4 beat to
to 4/4 , stepping on 1, 2 etc in order activate the ear and connect link the exoteric audible
stimulus to the esoteric (inner) sense of duration of movement. After exploring the consonant
relationship between rhythm and movement, we explored counterpoint, for example step in
the 1 of a 4/4 beat, when the audible beat was in 3/4. With these exercises the dancer began
to move independently, but also within a complete awareness of the whole:
musical/rhythmical structures, counterpointing /dissonant moving bodies in space.
Pitch, the next foundational element of music, was defined in the vertical axis high
level for high pitch and low level for low pitch. Although there is ample discussion of the
phenomenology of pitch and motion (for example, Pratt 1930 and Shove & Rep 1995), the
discussion seems not to have transferred to dance and even less dance improvisation. In our
work, we began to address this by mapping pitch onto two complementary spatial axes.
During the early improvisations the vertical plane of the body was divided into three zones
each mirroring an octave: feet to hip joint hip joint to shoulder, shoulder to the space
reached by extended arm (edge of the vertical plane in the kinesphere). In other instances
pitch was mapped onto a general space axis where movements up and down the scale were

11 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

not determined by a body axis but by relative positioning of body parts in the space grid.
Towards the final stages of the work dancers could shift from one axis to the next. The pitch
figure was mapped onto the movement factor of weight, as there is correlation between the
high and low tones (in relation to rising and falling tension) in pitch and the increasing and
decreasing pressure quality of weight (Moore, p. 151).
Pitch is organized into intervals. The mathematical analogy of intervals in the 8th /
12th tone scale, coming from the Pythagorean musical theory, is interestingly connected to the
analogy of the parts of the body, akin to the mathematical concept that led to the creation of
the Golden measure in figurative arts. The same analogy has been used therefore here in
order to establish the steps or intervals of the basic subdivisions of tones and semi-tones.
We started with a simple task, mapping ascending and descending scales to movement from
lower to higher level. We exercised on chromatic scales (semi-tones, smallest steps),
major/minor scales, whole tone scales, cadences, etc. Although it seemed simple at first, there
was an inherent performance challenge, in as much as dancers had to learn to modulate their
range of movement within a continuum, with clear indication of the subdivisions that span
from the highest to the lowest tone of the scale. After establishing the connections of the
basic subdivisions of the musical scale onto the body (on the vertical axis), we practiced
interval variation - triads, arpeggios, and patterns, commonly used in jazz improvisation.
In the explorations of pitch, an important difference had to be established: The
metaphoric spatial rising and falling of pitch in music can become an actual rising and falling
of the body in the vertical axis. However, if the movement is only manifested in an axis (two
dimensional), we quickly enter into music mimicry. We had to re-think the mapping of pitch
onto a vertical plane, rather than axis, as the lateral tension contained within a plane of
movement allowed for more variety in the movement response.

12 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

In music, volume refers to the fullness or intensity of a sound. It is defined within the
piano/forte continuum the energy that it takes to produce a sound. We cross-mapped this to
the movement factor of flow. Although in music the term flow is connected to phrasing, in
movement terms, flow refers to the amount of energy that gives definition to a given
movement. Normally it is referred to the ability to stop or not the movement. However, flow
can also be perceived as how energy is contained within muscle and tissue. For example, a
bound movement is defined by the tension of energy within, a bound movement projects into
space, therefore cross-mapped to forte. In actions that are free, the energy is unbound within;
it is a movement that does not project. Therefore, free-flow was made analogous to piano.
Phrasing in music leads us to consider articulation, defined by the contrasting factors of
staccato/legato (separated/connected), which in movement terms the closest but not identical
correspondence is the movement factor of time. The movement quality of sudden is defined
by Laban as movement sensation of a short span of time (Laban p.73) and was related to
staccato. Furthermore in staccato the sense is of instant occurrence, which goes some way to
understand it s possible connections to Labans quick, a word which is also used in
connection to sudden. The quality of sustained, a movement sensation of a long span of
time was mapped to legato.
After we had familiarised ourselves with the basic elements, the explorations became
more complex as we began to deal with the embodiment of these structures in combinations.
For example: we used a simple musical phrase of ten notes containing alternating variables:
the pitch phrase remained the same (repeated x times), but with each cycle of repetition
changes happened in articulation, for example; the three first notes staccato, the rest legato. In
the next cycle of repetition we added the factor of volume, ending up with combinations of
staccato/forte followed by legato/piano and so forth until all combinations had been explored.

13 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

We chose not to work with either music or Laban notation, as in the context of this work
they represent quite closed systems of notations. Rather in keeping with more recent trends
in the use of scores for improvisation and composition, we worked from a graphic score in
which the key musical structures of pitch, volume, articulation and phrasing were depicted.
This facilitated various aspects of the process of setting up the analogies: it was an effective
short hand way for dancers to encounter the elements of the audible, it helped to guide
phrasing in both music and dance terms, and significantly to the moment of free
improvisation, to safeguard both dancers and musicians autonomous creative and physical
response to the figure:
At first the score, how to read it, how to be creative was difficult, particularly
the silences, where you realised it did not mean that you should stay still, but
that in that moment your choices were totally open. It was interesting this
negotiating of total freedom and very precise restrictions within the same
improvisation. (Joshua Rosado, dancer).
Similarly:
The score seemed to demand a lot of material, more variation.
The limits were at first difficult, but interesting, in time, I was able to
use my whole body. (Tania Muniz, dancer).
Explorations further afield
The project gave the opportunity to the musicians to open up their artistry and see its
effect on a broader scale. It was not an easy task. In order to participate in this project, the
musicians had to break the box of the musical sheet and be able to go beyond perceiving
the world aurally; to see different aspects of their very art by witnessing the transformation of
music into another art form:
I had not played with dancers before, this was very different,
You find yourself in a very different relationship with the instrument
and the dancers. (Edward Ortiz Jr, flutist).
In the same manner that dancers were introduced to musical structures, musicians were
introduced to movement factors. We explored various tasks:

14 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

In the first improvisation we asked each musician to follow one dancers whole body
movements. He could choose which elements of the body in movement to respond to
musically. The aim was to establish an improvisation motivated by a palindrome of stimuli.
From the perspective of the dancer, music offered the aural, for the musicians the visual, both
shaping their art separately and at the same time as one. It was clear that this task was too
broad and could easily lead to what we were trying to avoid superficial interpretation of
movement in sound. The movement of the body was so dense that the musician did not know
how to deconstruct and respond to musically:
It is funny for us, the words rhythms, pitch, groove have immediate practical
meaning, we can perform them, we can notice them when performing with
other musicians, no problem, but ask me to understand what the leg is doing,
or an arm... that is hard... (Edward Ortiz, Jr., flutist).
At the same time, we recognised that the dancers did not address the task of offering
something clear to the improvisation, as they were very focussed on their own sensation of
movement.
Hence in the early attempts, we ended up in two parallel monologues. Clearer
restrictions were needed. In the next set of improvisations we assigned one instrument to one
specific body part (i.e. flute follows right hand). The flute was following the hand not unlike
a conductor, looking for changes in direction, energy, and flow as stimuli for the musical
response. In another instance, the bass followed the legs. For one musician:
I compare it with bomba, we have rhythms we have melody...
and understand your intention, legs were easy, arms harder...
(Richard Pena, bassist)
The musicians found it easy to work with what the legs could offer, however if the dancer
was proposing using the core area of the body (torso, hips) this proved more challenging as
the subtleties of motion in this part of the body were not immediately accessible:
the core is hard, not so easy to see, it will need lots of practice,
the movement is very subtle, but the thing that comes out musically
is very interesting (Yannis Kassetas, saxophonist).

15 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

It was a slow process and detailed improvisatory process-- each dancer improvising to each
instrument, so that the commonalities and differences across each could be identified,
perceived and worked on:
In the group improvisation there is a challenge, you establish something with
one dancer, you get it, and then another dancer comes in with a different
proposal, you have to re-establish the connection... (Edward Ortiz, flutist)
The ability of the body to offer a multiplicity of projected movements is what makes
the construction of the dialogue between dancer and musician so dynamically interesting.
When I am moving my hand (for example) I am still aware that I am moving
with the whole body, to support the hand. I think that I am sending the
intention hand to the musician, that he can pick up the signal, but I will still
move the rest of the body to the side, then I have the doubt, of whether the
musician can readthis... (Omar Nieves, dancer, post day 3 debriefing)
The musician of a monophonic instrument (i.e. flute, saxophone) has the ability to address
one moving element at a time. The same movement in this way, in its complexity, can be
interpreted by the musician in innumerable variations, which yet remain systematically
identical (or coherent). This additionally offers the chance to two or more musicians to
respond in dialogue between them (according/dis-cording) to the same kinetic stimulus
offered by one dancer. Thus, the improvisation is generated by structured layers upon layers
of propositions.
On the other hand, an instrument that is polyphonic (like a piano) is able to address
synchronically more elements of the kinetic stimulus. Thus the dialogue can be structured on
what we call in music vertical harmony. Simultaneously, the dancer is responding each time
to a different aspect of her very action and therefore reinterprets the dynamic implications of
it.
Therefore, Moving Sound, in congruence with current understanding of
improvisation, offers a process of openness that can only happen through the establishment of

16 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

a coherent system, with commonly shared rules. In the particular case of Moving Sound,
instead of creating two systems of separate discourse, we have created the conditions of
constructing one, establishing the parameters of communication between dancer and
musician in the present moment of any improvisation. Moving Sound has pursued the
creation of a more versatile instrument, in which not only the simultaneous exchange of the
same notions are possible, but also the creation of a new more complex polyphony, within
which sound and movement function as intrinsic elements of it. The recursive system of
Moving Sound allows for the co-creating musician and dancer to construct improvisation in
the sense of an instant composition, in which parts of what could be movements in dance, or
notes in music, are roles irrespectively inter-exchanged, creating, melodic lines or chords of
vertical harmony. By interweaving motion and sound, we achieve a common polyphony
(instead of two polyphonic systems monophonically arranged), only this time with even more
voices, more nuances, more artistic perspectives, more possibilities - achieving ultimately a
more complete and complex engagement of the senses; even reaching complete audio-visual
substitution: hence, re-considering the musically arranged dance in silence.

REFERENCES:
Bogo, D. (2002). Negotiating Freedom: Values and Practices in Contemporary
Improvisational Music. Black Music Research Journal. 22(2) Autumn: 165-188.
Bowman, W. (2004). Cognition and the Body: Perspectives from Music Education, in
Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: Toward Embodied Teaching and Learning, Bresler L (ed).
(Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press): 29-50.
Cooper-Albright, A. & Gere, D. (2003). Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader.
(Wesleyan University Press).
Cox, C. & Warner, D. (2004) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, (Continuum
Books).

17 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

De Spain, K. (2003) The Cutting Edge of Awareness. in Albright A.C. and Gere, D. (eds).
Taken by Surprise a Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press): 27-38.
Foster, S. L. (1994). Taken By Surprise: Improvisation in Dance and Mind, in Albright
A.C. and Gere, D. (eds). Taken by Surprise a Dance Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan
University Press): 3-10.
Goldman, D. (2010). I Want to Be Ready: Improvised Dance as a Practice of Freedom (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
Haga, E (2008). Correspondences between Music and Body Movement. Unpublished Ph D
Thesis, University of Oslo: retrievable at:
https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/.../music-movement-Haga-final.pdf.

Heffner-Hayes, M. (2003). The Writing on the Wall: reading Improvisation in Flamenco

and Postmodern Dance in in Albright A.C. and Gere, D. (eds). Taken by Surprise a Dance
Improvisation Reader. (Wesleyan University Press): 105-116.
Jordan, S. (2005). Musical/Choreographical Discourse: Method, Music Theory. In
Meaning in Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance. Morris, G. (ed), (London: Routdlege):.1424.
Levine, M. (1995). Jazz Theory. (Sher Music Co. Petaluma: California).
Montouri, A. (2003). The Complexity of Improvisation and the Improvisation of
Complexity: Social Science, Art and Creativity. Human Relations. 56(2): 237-255.
Moore, C. L. (2009) The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music and Dance According to
Rudolf Laban: An Examination of his Unpublished Writings and Drawings., EBSCO
Publishing eBook Collection. AN 458715.
Peters, G. (2009). The Philosophy of Improvisation. (Chicago: The Chicago University
Press).
Power, C. (2008) Presence in Play: A Critique of Theories of Presence in Theatre.
Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Pratt, C. (1930). The Spatial Characters of High and Low Tones, Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 13: 278-85.
Rinzler, P. E. (2008). The Contradictions of Jazz, (Maryland: Scarecrow Press).
Further Reading:
Feisst, S.M. (2009). John Cage and Improvisation- An Unresolved Relationship. In Solis,
G. Gabriel Solis et al. (eds). ) Music Improvisation: Art, Education and Society. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press: 38-51.
Lewis, G.E. (1996), Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological
Perspectives. Black Music Research Journal, 16(1) (Spring): 91-122.

18 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg

Martin, N (2013), Emergent Choreography: Spontaneous \Ensemble Dance Composition in

Improvised Performance, PhD dissertation, Texas Woman University, retrievable at:
http://poar.twu.edu/bitstream/handle/11274/330/martinc.pdf?sequence=1
Shove, P. & Rep, B. (1995). Musical Motion and Performance: Theoretical and Empirical
Perspectives. The Practice of Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):55-83.

19 | Karalis/Snchez-Colberg