I worked with Artlab J and Detroit Puppet Company on a show in the past three months. The premiere was last Saturday. I have been documenting the creative process of this project, and I plan to write a paper about it. But, for now, I want to share the soundtrack for the project.
Link to Score and Performance Audio Files
Cue #
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Contact Joo Won Park for questions or inquiries (https://www.facebook.com/joowonmusic/ or https://joowonpark.net/)
In Nested Duets, an ensemble of any size and kind can improvise with one or more laptops running a generative music app. The computer has two roles: it provides possible pitch choices for the human performers and creates accompanying electronic sounds. The performance instruction is on the computer screen.
DropBox Download: contains instructions and SuperCollider file
Performers: Kevin Declaire, Samuel Khalil, De’Andre Little, Jose Llanas, Logan Macka, Lucas Manther, James McCloskey, Joseph Mcelwain, Mal McNitt, Niko Poljanac-Leboeuf, Christopher Reid, Abby Thibodeau, Nathan Zonnevylle
Recording Team: Sinead Cassar, Kevin Declaire, Logan Macka, James McCloskey, Niko Poljanac-Leboeuf, Christopher Reid
Nested Duets was part of the 2022 Black Mountain College Radio Art program. 103.3 Asheville FM’s Lucid aired the piece on December 12, 2022. Electronic Music Ensemble of Wayne State (EMEWS) thanks BMC and 103.3 Asheville FM for the opportunity!
I have been writing and performing electronic music for dance for more than a decade. I learned so much from choreographers, and I look forward to working with them more in the future. Here’s a documentation of my music for dance so far.
My dance collaboration started as an improviser. Megan Bridge of the Fidget and I met in Philadelphia, and we had many improv sessions. May sessions I had with the dancers during my Philly years (2008-2014) made me a better musician and listener. Below is another improvisation project with Erick Montes, Eunjung Choi, and Guillermo Ortega Montes.
When I moved to Oberlin, I was fortunate to work with Holly Handman-Lopez. I was involved in producing an evening-length show about the woman suffrage movement. My role was to compose music with a short deadline and multiple changes/edits. I learned how to communicate with choreographers and dance production staff. Unfortunately, I do not have footage of the actual performance, but below are a promo video (with someone else’s music) and a recording session of a piece used in the show.
In Detroit, my current stomping ground, I continue to work with the dancers with different roles. In 2021, I worked with IS/LAND as a technologist. I provided an electromagnetic instrument that made sounds as the dancers approach an object. I was happy to be a part of a production as non-composer or non-performer (but still as a musician)
Last April, Biba Bell and I collaborated to make a 60min site-specific piece for dance and electronic ensemble. My job was to make music and direct an ensemble consisting of nine electronic musicians. It was the largest work I have ever worked on in terms of the number of people involved. The documentation of the work was also excellent.
My most recent collaboration is with Joori Jung of Artlab J. Through this collaboration, I worked with a Pansori singer to compose a 20min music. The collaboration also took me to a new stage. I never thought my music was going to be on an Asian Culture Showcase! The video documentation is on the way, but here are pictures of the rehearsal.
Dance and music are time-based arts, and dancers and musicians learn from each other. I am grateful that I had opportunities to work with excellent choreographers and improvisers. I look forward to doing more projects with movements! I am not a dancer myself, but I am studying the relationship between movement and sound. Check out the video below!
A DREAM IS A HOUSE for remembering the future from Biba bell on Vimeo.
A DREAM IS A HOUSE for remembering the future, created in collaboration by Biba Bell (Dance) and Joo Won Park (Music), is an hour-long immersive performance created for twenty-one Wayne State University (WSU) dancers and the WSU Electronic Music Ensemble in Minoru Yamasaki’s McGregor Conference Center atrium. A DREAM IS A HOUSE brings together sound, light, movement, embodiment, and storytelling together in the cathedral-esque modernism of Yamasaki’s architecture, evoking creative research driven by memory palaces, buildings as bodies, dream scenes, dancing with ghosts, and personal and collective ritual making. – from Vimeo site
My ensemble (EMEWS) and I worked with Biba and her Dance Class to make a site-specific, multi-channel piece over the Winter 2022 semester. The above is an excerpt of a 60-min piece. McGregor Hall’s architecture and acoustics were ideal for music and movement. I am happy about the result. The in-person experience was something unique, but Noah Eliott Morrison‘s team documented the essential experience of the piece in the video.
Although EMEWS has worked on the piece since March, I started working on it in August 2021. Biba and I spent Fall 2021 trying ideas and finding voices. The video below is a shorter version of A DREAM… presented at an end-of-semester showcase.
A dream is a house for remembering the future 12.07.21 from Biba bell on Vimeo.
