A Step

Our path through the territory of movement and sound "A Step" is a collaborative project involving dance, sound, movement, and music. It found its inspiration in the simple, single, foot step which is then followed by sound and developed through subsequent movement. Our intent with this piece is to research the intersection of sound and motion, and to turn the convention of "movement following music" on its head. As music has its own narrative and direct connection to our emotions, we have experimented with the motions informing the soundscape. Both of which, in turn, evolve and shift within their own dimensions. In this way a symbiosis is formed between the two performers and their dissimilar, yet convergent, art forms. Over the course of the piece the dynamics of the interaction are less antagonistic than two mingling interdependent halves, which after an oscillation between choreography and composition, finally combine to create a third separate entity. 
A Step is the first phase of a larger process between Akemi Nagao and Michael Tuttle. The following chapter is one in which the music is composed beforehand and though it will have elements of improvisation, the music is firmly in the foreground. Then, for the final phase, the composition of the sound and the choreography of movement will be synthesized, thus placing each art form and performer on level ground.




performed
2011  Ethnologische Museum Berlin
2012  ada studio Berlin, piccolo theatro in Bremerhaven
2015  DOCK11 in Berlin
2016  Tanzfabrik Berlin 


supported by Kuluturtopf Bremerhaven in 2012