Apparently this iPod-enabled dance performance has been around for quite a while (here's an NYT piece on it from 2006), but it's the first we've heard of it, and it's pretty amazing. The 87-year-old choreographer, Merce Cunningham, who has collaborated with John Cage and Andy Warhol among others, has created a dance performance piece called eyeSpace. Apparently, the music, which can be downloaded preperformance and is written by composer Mikel Rouse (no relation at all to TUAW's own Mike Rose) plays in the audience's iPods while the dancers dance (and other atmospheric sounds are added during the performance as well). Very interesting. The NYT piece seems to hint that the tracks are meant to be played in random order on each iPod, which would mean that the timing wasn't too important, but it's a cool idea (even more cool that it's done by an artist of Cunningham's age, but what else do you expect from a Mac fan?).
Definitely reminds me, too, of the MP3 Experiments done by Improv Everywhere in New York. Just goes to show you that we're still in the middle of the digital music revolution -- when we can listen to almost anything anywhere at any time, who knows what other creative folks will come up with?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-05-2008 @ 10:53PM
Alex said...
When this piece was performed at Stanford University (about a month ago), iPod Shuffles were distributed to the audience, thus each individual audience member received their own personal style of performance, depending on which track they heard the tracks in.
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4-06-2008 @ 7:33AM
Jeff said...
Alex, as the Eye Level piece states, visitors to the DC performance also were given iPod shuffles.
4-05-2008 @ 11:30PM
Kevin said...
I saw this performance in D.C. recently. It was very impressive and enjoyable.
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