Visiting lecture with composer John MacCallum and dancer/choreographer Teoma Naccarato
Friday, November 14th, Silverstone Building, Room 121, 4pm.
Composer John MacCallum and choreographer Teoma Naccarato, currently research fellows at Ircam in Paris, will present their current collaborative project that examines the use of real-time, heart rate data from contemporary dancers to drive a polytemporal composition for instrumental ensemble with live electronics.
The work explores both the external expression and internal state of each dancer – physical, emotional, and psychological – in order to drive intentional arcs in heart activity over time. ECG data from the dancers provides an underlying clock for each musician, producing dynamic textures of time in the poly-temporal score.
MacCallum and Naccarato will discuss the challenges of developing a facile choreographic and compositional environment for real-time interaction with biosensors, as well as questions regarding internal-external perception and interaction.
##BIOS
##John MacCallum
John MacCallum is a composer based, since 2004, in Oakland, CA. From 2008–2011 he held a position as Musical Applications Programmer at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). While there, he designed a number of software tools including one useful for composing and performing music with multiple, independent, smoothly-varying tempos, which resulted in his composition aberration (2010) for percussion trio, the recording of which was supported by a grant from the American Composer’s Forum, and Delicate Texture of Time (2012–13) for eight players commissioned by the Eco Ensemble with a grant from the Mellon Foundation. In addition to his interest in polytemporal music, MacCallum’s compositional work is heavily reliant on technology both as a compositional tool and as an integral aspect of the performance of a piece. His works often employ carefully constrained algorithms that are allowed to evolve differently and yet predictably each time they are performed.
John holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. in Music Composition), McGill University (M.M. in Composition), and the University of the Pacific (B.M. in Composition/Theory).
##Teoma Naccarato
Teoma Naccarato is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, educator, and scholar based in Montreal, Canada. Naccarato received an MFA in Dance and Technology at the Ohio State University in 2011, and a BFA in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University in 2004. Naccarato’s creations integrate contemporary dance with responsive video, audio and sensor technologies to explore vulnerability and intimacy in embodied and virtual interactions.
Since 2004 Naccarato Dance has shared work across Canada, the United States, South America, and Europe, with recent presentations at the Hemispheric Institute Encuentro (Montreal 2014), the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (Chicago 2014), the ReNew Digital Arts Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark (2013), and the TimeWave International (Cyber) Festival (London, UK 2013). Naccarato is involved with interactive media and movement research at the Centre for New Music and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley (2013-present), the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University (2011-2014), and the Experimental Media and Movement Arts Lab at the Ohio State University (2010-2011).