Project 9:

Distant Voices

Distant Voices (2016) was a telematic creative research project regarding the efficacy of VisiMeet software to create a new dance work with original music collaboratively. Participants included simultaneous performances of dancers from Nova Southeastern University (FL, USA) and John Moores University (Liverpool, UK) with composer/musicians from Edinburgh Napier University (Scotland, UK). IOCOM has generously provided licenses to the three participants of Distant Voices.

Each of the three sites included a live audience who saw the live performers in that space as well as performers from the other two sites on a screen. Each live audience saw performance on and off the camera, while the internet audience who joined us from the UK, US and Greece only saw the dance that was caputred by the webcams at each theatre. Along with collaborative pedagogy, we were exploring the aesthetic challenges and opportunities that his layered visual information offers to the viewer, and challening the performers (both dancersss and musicians, to work with a strucutred imporvisation process, governed by the Condutor, who made the choices in the moment.

Nova Southeastern University

Luke Kahlich – Director/Co-choreographer

Dancers: Mariah Busk, Angelina Granitz. Sarah Hutcher, Brittany Nicholson, Shanae Reece, Paige Robbins

Liverpool John Moores University

Pauline Brooks, Director/ Co-choreographer

Nicola Price: Project Manager

Dancers: Elizabeth Cavanagh, Lucy Browne, Louise Dolan, Emily Edwards, Amy Saltmarsh, Natalie Traynor

Edinburgh Napier University

Kenneth Dempster - composer/conductor

Katrina Burton – composer

Musicians: Michael Ready - alto flute; Liam Orr - trumpet; Joanna Stark - cello; Darren Gallacher - percussion; Fraser Harrington - piano

Technical Staff