2. 2
Introduction
First as a musician and second as a cellist playing the Ligeti Solo Cello Sonata, I desired the
expressive power of bodies in motion through dance. Upon considering the inherently different
natures of music and dance, I realised that I needed to create a score that everyone could read in
order to establish even collaborative ground. This graphic score inspired the new music composition
Lines for Gage, based on selected pages of the score. The team included cellist Gage Ehmann,
choreographer Harriet Macauley, dancers PJ Hurst and Joel O'Donoghue, and composer Daniel
Ehrlich.
The process of choreographing the Ligeti Solo Cello Sonata for two male dancers with live
cello has revealed to me that much of what has driven this project both creatively and intellectually
is my inclination toward analogy and its related constructs. Here, music : time : : dance : space. It is
no coincidence that the first movement—lyrical and abstract—and the second movement—virtuosic
and literal—reflect this relationship between space and time. Dialogo : space : : Capriccio : time.
The basic format of the project reflects duality at some level; the graphic score produced for the
choreographic interpretation of the music also inspired a musical interpretation.
By immediately implying binary oppositions, I risk the very reduction and limiting against
which Simon Shaw-Miller cautions. In describing the construction 'image—music—text,' he
explains:
What a study of hybridity can show us is that gray areas, those that lie between such
oppositions—the hyphens—are sites of rich and provocative activity. Indeed, such
compound and hybrid sites are more characteristic of the processes of making art in history
than are attempts to reduce practice to essentialist oppositions.1
If it does anything, this project harnesses hybridity as creative potential. I hope to show that
hybridity and constructs of analogy within the context of this project are mutually beneficial.
Analogy will appear frequently to demonstrate the effectiveness of what seem purely conceptual
connections in directing the creative process. If metaphors are mixed, this only emphasises the
degree to which the elements of collaboration are inextricably linked.
The particular story that Ligeti chose to appropriate from Bartók—the Dialogo's inspiration
of youthful infatuation, then love rejected—provides a good example of the potentially dubious
context surrounding the piece. Because Ligeti modelled the Sonata on the two-movement form of
the Bartók Violin Concerto, his choice of story both recalls the duality that interests him, and also
subverts a biographical reading of the Solo Cello Sonata. While this context provides one lens
through which to view this work, I would like to focus instead on the interactions between the
distinct creative disciplines encompassed by this collaboration.
Consequently, I will now turn to the collaborative process, the linchpin of which is the
graphic score I created as the interpretive 'common denominator' for communication with the
choreographer. Because distinct images are only understood in proximity to one another, the
creation of the graphic score introduced the spatial in the time-space relationship mentioned above.
Musicologist Richard Leppert reminds us:
1
Simon Shaw-Miller, Visible Deeds of Music: from Wagner to Cage, (London: Yale University Press, 2002), 35.
3. 3
The way of seeing hence incorporates the way of hearing: the artist must produce
images in such a way that their meanings will be congruent with those produced by
sight and sound together in the lived experience of the original and intended viewer.2
The viewers within this context were the creator and choreographer, and later in the progress of the
project, the composer. The two perspectives represented—consistent with the duality of the
Sonata—both met the original musical line with the physical line of movement, and also interpreted
the geometric lines that constitute the graphic representation of the music through the musical lines
of fresh composition. What had originally inspired the graphic score also emerged from it to
influence the whole of the creative process: gesture, in all of its various manifestations. In addition
to the visual gestures put forth by the graphic score, I provided the choreographer with video clips
of technical gestures at the cello corresponding to specific excerpts of the Sonata. By employing the
model of Simon Shaw-Miller, quoted above, gestural inputs and outputs together could be described
as visual—technical—musical—physical. Again, the spaces between these different types of
gestures are the '...sites of rich and provocative activity.'3
In seeking to understand these gestures
and the relationships between them, I will present two mechanisms that facilitated this collaborative
process: an investigation of the gestures themselves, perceived as resulting from the 'musical forces'
proposed by Steve Larson, and the space between theses gestures in which sound and movement,
music and choreography interact, represented by a discussion of synaesthesia.
Steve Larson's melodic and rhythmic inertia, gravity, and magnetism influenced the
scientific nature of the ideas that emerged from conversations between cellist and choreographer
(reinforcing those of the graphic score), and promoted movement motifs that explored the
relationships between two musical forces acting simultaneously. The notion of synaesthesia—from
its most common manifestation as audio-visual phenomenon to consideration as inter-sense, and by
extension, inter-art analogy—proved a recurrent stimulus that challenged the objectives and
implications of the project process and final outcome.
Exposition of abstract ideas in the graphic score finds grounding in the approaches of
musical forces and synaesthesia, which stimulate collaborative creation. The general trajectory of
discussion, then, traverses from conceptual to actual: description of images traces gesture through
the graphic score, thereby revealing its interpretive rationale; musical forces and the principle of
synaesthesia help to explain how gesture transforms from an abstract concept to a participant in the
physical experience of creativity; gesture unifies the choreography and facilitates its fluidity;
gesture emerges from the new composition through translation of selected pages of the graphic
score.
Before delving into the graphic score, a general sense of perspective on music-dance
collaboration begs a pertinent comparison to the convenient 20-year-old precedent: the Prelude and
Sarabande from the Third Bach Solo Cello Suite, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, and choreographed by
Mark Morris.4
The spatial arrangement of dancers, their paths of movement, and the lines created
by individual bodies all reflect a Neoclassical aesthetic, which complements the Baroque dance
2
Richard Leppert, The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993), xxi.
3
Shaw-Miller, Visible Deeds of Music, 35.
4
'Yo-Yo Ma plays the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 3', YouTube video, posted by 'lesludmm73', 9 August 2008,
<http://youtu.be/lGY4LtJ2_CI> accessed 17 August 2015.
'J.S. Bach: Cello Suite No. 3: Sarabande', YouTube video, posted by 'gskndbrg', 15 October 2008,
<http://youtu.be/kAX7WF6iMcU> accessed 17 August 20015.
4. 4
suite. Geometric symmetry and movements in counterpoint are both archetypical examples of this
aesthetic. Key to this interpretation is the placement of the cellist atop a pedestal. The immediate
implication is that the cellist assumes the status of the deity to be worshipped, especially
considering the bowing motions of the dancers in supplication before an altar. Another possibility is
that this spectacle is Sound personified and consecrated.
Apart from the Neoclassical aesthetic, the distinguishing feature of this 1995 choreography
is the way in which movement is precisely coordinated with various aspects of metre and rhythm.5
This 'mirroring' of movement and sound is the principle against which the current choreography
reacts. The present collaboration seeks subtler manifestations of sound, and points of creative
resistance where music and dance maintain independence. Collaborative malleability was afforded
by the multiple potentialities of the graphic representation of the music.
5
This definition of mirroring is my own; for further discussion of the implications of meter and rhythm for musical
motion, see the section 'Mapping Musical Forces'.
5. 5
Explaining Painting
He naturally seeks to apply the means of music to his own art. And from this results that
modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated
notes of colour, for setting colour in motion, and so on.6
The creation of the graphic score was guided by a dual purpose: to externalise my
interpretation of the music, and to simplify the music for translation to movement. Differences in
graphic representation between the Dialogo and Capriccio movements reflect opposite interpretive
approaches, motivated in turn by the basic contrast of musical character. While the lyricism and
harmonic shading of the Dialogo suggest the abstract, the virtuosic streaks of the Capriccio demand
the literal realisation of line. Dialogo : shapes and gradients : : Capriccio : lines and vectors.
I deliberately chose large sheets (16" x 24") for the score, because this open canvas forced
me to realise the music in bold shapes and vivid colours that defy the self-contained form of the
Sonata in question. More important, these shapes combine with colours to objectify the musical
gestures essential to the work.7
Choice of colours in the score was largely subjective. Darker shades often correspond to
lower registers, and brighter to higher. The primary colours feature prominently throughout, not
only as emphatic descriptors, but also as background to foreground images, in order to convey the
textural atmosphere of the given passage. This last example is just one way in which colours clarify
and reinforce relationships within the music. Complementary, split-complementary, and triadic
colours derived from general colour theory, as well as the particularly significant theory of Wassily
Kandinsky, inform how colours interact with one another.8
I will present the movements of the graphic score here in the order in which they were
completed, so that a sense of the overall working process may supplement description of the
images.9
The Capriccio required a sketch, time-consuming duplication to large format, and detailed
application of colour. Some time after the sketch attempt of the Dialogo was abandoned due to its
overly complicated architectural nature, I determined that a freer approach would better enable the
abstraction I desired, and finished the Dialogo within a few days.10
The Capriccio is read from left to right across sixteen pages, first along the horizontal top
line until halfway through the piece, after which the notation continues along the bottom line. This
layout of the score foremost emphasises the division of the Capriccio into two larger sections. The
Dialogo is arranged according to the appearances of the main subject and its response that
constitute the melodic material for the movement. Accordingly, the score follows a less-defined
trajectory. The first page is a complete entity, while the following four pages feature horizontal
lines read left to right down the page.
In panel I-C, the two larger sections of the Capriccio are indicated by arrow 1, which points
to the top horizontal line, and by arrow 2, which shows where the score continues after the middle
6
Arnold Schoenberg, Arnold Schoenberg/Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures, and Documents, edited by Jelena Hahl-
Koch and translated by John C. Crawford, (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1984), 40.
7
Both sketching and painting ascribed to the 'apply-by-gesture' process. For another objective view on gesture, see the
section 'Mapping Musical Forces'.
8
All applications of Kandinsky's theory derive from its presentation in Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in
Art, translation based on the Sadleir Translation with Considerable Re-translation by Francis Golffing, Michael
Harrison, and Ferdinand Ostertag, (Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014), 43-67.
9
All descriptions that follow refer to 'Ligeti Solo Cello Sonata: Graphic Score (selected pages)'.
10
See sketch 'top side—Dialogo 2'.
6. 6
section of the piece (at the top of page 16). But more important than the division of the movement
into two formal parts is the relationship between those sections, made explicit by the very first
figure of the top line and its near-exact inversion in the bottom line. Here Ligeti seems to play with
rhetorical convention. While in the first section an initial outburst is met with stern opposition, (that
does not subside in the higher register of the fourth figure), the second section begins with a
declamation answered by a complimentary response. The reaction has changed; the second time the
music exhibits discipline. These initial statements are terminated by brackets, which signify silence
in the music. The use of brackets in the score was inspired by their use in mathematics to denote
absolute value. No matter how transient, silences must be observed. Indeed, silences in the
Capriccio are always marked with brackets; spaces left between images represent perceived—rather
than defined—flexibility within the music.
These first three pages of the score are dominated by the breathless pursuance of line, meant
to evoke the volatility of a racing pulse. Near exhaustion, straight-line vectors mark the insistence—
damn the interval—with which the musical line penetrates downward through the registers of the
cello. The spiral is denouement; with every turn and every shade darker, the energy of the line
dissipates.
In the second section, the loss of energy is both more gradual and more discreet. The
ostinato reiterates in three registers of the cello, each higher and quieter. These echoes into the
stratosphere recall the rhetorical nature of the initial statements on the first page of the graphic
score. Argument in the foreground introduces; perspectives gaining in distance transition. The
graphic score shows how the fragments of the ostinato that chip off literally transform into the
bubbling alternations that lead to familiar material.
The middle portion of the score (panel II-C) presents the contrast of modal melody that
undergoes textural transformation. Detached, upended slurs support the thread of sound that travels
through the watery medium of primary colour. After, amorphous note shapes whose layers move
within tell just as much as the spaces between them.11
The bottom line features pizzicato as the
springboard for the high fluttering trill; simple semicircles disperse the resonance of the open
strings.
In panel III-C, the violent energy of the bow stroke conjures the slashing of claws. The
second half of the top line is a good example of a colour scheme based on the split-complimentary
relationship. This colour scheme both emphasises the ascent of the bass-line by arpeggio pairs
linked by whole-tone, and highlights the modal centrepiece of the progression. In the latter half of
the piece, the graphic score shows how patterns in the music are related through compression of
interval. To indulge in cliché: the harmonic minor mode evokes the gradually sloping contour and
arid colouring of a dune.
These final three pages (panel IV-C) are the most diverse of the Capriccio. Muted colours
hung by fluorescent green thread—all surrounded by grey—transmit the strangeness of inversion in
the music. It is a familiar gesture only in shape; now it is foreign and other. This meandering is
confronted by arpeggios, first cutting from the top in confident strokes of primary colour that then
succumb to their frenzied mirror image. The music fights for breath between the arpeggios, and
frantically gasps before the vertiginous break with sanity. Debilitating streaks of yellow and blue
11
This gesture of the graphic score is what the choreographer referred to as 'underground'; see the section 'Cogitations
on Collaboration'.
7. 7
displace the red and yellow flecks of anger. Icarus flies too close to the sun, and plummets to his
violent end on the jagged rocks that jut from the sea.12
At bottom the ricochet molecule decays to silence blue then green, which yet has the
potential for motion.13
Seizing on this potential, the line springs forth into the persistent hemiola
that stretches, and then contracts, right up to the blue and yellow stalemate. Silence yields to the
final two gestures of the Capriccio: the jump onto the vault and the rebound, flame to the sky.
It is telling that the majority of the Capriccio pencil sketch was darkened with pen before
paint was applied; the Dialogo saw no such outlining. While the Capriccio top and its bottom alter-
images show the overall linear progression of the music, the Dialogo shows the musical transition
of perspective. The background of the Dialogo first page (panel 1D) immediately differentiates it
from the Capriccio score, and sets a precedent for the first movement: relationships between
corresponding elements are of greater significance than the elements themselves. As counterpoint
gradually tinges the lyrical melodies, the graphic score transitions from representation of a unified
space to sequential representation.
Single secondary-colour sponge strokes at the corners and centre of the first page represent
the pizzicato-glissando chords; their placement reflects how these chords frame the main melodic
interest of the movement. The choice of brackets for the first melodic subject follows a rationale
both visual and semiotic. While I desired a simple shape that could visually enact the growth and
dissipation of the musical phrase, I also required a universally recognisable sign system that could
expand and contract as necessary to accommodate harmonic and/or contrapuntal embellishment of
that melodic subject over the course of the movement. Brackets make explicit the logic of musical
syntax: where statements begin and end (or how they are left incomplete, begun afresh, and elided
together). The visual effect of this shape is intensified by the juxtaposition of blue and yellow,
which highlights the fundamental half-tone conflict in the melody between the second and third
scale degrees.
Space contained within these brackets visually contrasts with space between the independent
melodic shapes that represent the three subsections of the answer to the first subject. Each of these
independent shapes serves as a template for the brush strokes that later accrue, providing the
volume for the portrayal of harmonic activity within. Taking the subject and its answer together, all
three primary colours are represented. Following the juxtaposition of blue and yellow, red serves as
the basis of the answer colour group, which progresses from brighter to darker.
Panel II-D introduces the threads of harmony that begin to join the melodic subsections of
the answer together. Each different harmony corresponds to a different segment of thread. The first
red subsection in particular literally shows how harmony affects the listener's perception of musical
colour, as the red shows through pastel shades. These threads of harmony compare to the vertical
harmonic pillars and the literal interlocking of stretto found on panel III-D. Where the stretto voices
overlap, their colours bleed together.
Interaction of shape and colour produces an anomaly in the middle figure of the top line
(panel III-D). This is the only instance in the whole movement in which one melodic element
imitates the distinct figuration of another element. The four-semiquaver figure associated with the
third melodic subsection of the answer assumes a significantly different contour for inclusion in the
12
Anthony Gritten and Elaine King assert that 'Topics are at their most powerful when the reflection of an item of
contemporary life is least in evidence, and the musical gesture refers most directly, even unconsciously, to the mythic
world of cultural signification.' Anthony Gritten and Elaine King, 'Introduction' in Music and Gesture, ix-xxv
(Burlington: Ashgate), xxiii.
13
See Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 57-60.
8. 8
context of the second melodic subject (hence the shape of the third in the colour of the second).
This occurrence in the graphic score proves that inner emotional intent may persevere, even as its
outward projection changes. Emotion : colour : : motion : shape. In the final line of the score,
strokes of pizzicato-glissando alternate with worlds of resonance that issue from the low D.
Beyond establishing the means of music-dance communication, the completed graphic score
enhanced my understanding of the music by directly challenging my overly analytical yet 'blind'
interpretation. And by drawing me to an investigation of synaesthesia, the graphic score helped to
generate the trajectory (also informed by the counterpart of musical forces) that culminated in
collaboration.
9. 9
Mapping Musical Forces
Sound and image often rely on one another to evoke meaning that is not bound to either
medium. What for Richard Leppert became the meaning of the artwork, only in the 'lived
experience' of the viewer, becomes for Steve Larson the meaning of the music, only through our
'embodied intuitive understanding' of the physical forces of gravity, magnetism, and inertia.14
Music
appeals to the visual to describe gesture. Larson appropriates the definition of Robert Hatton, for
whom musical gesture is the 'significant, energetic shaping of sound through time'.15
This definition
of gesture preserves a sense of movement in concordance with the theory of musical forces, which
enables the direct translation of music to dance.
The conclusion derived from Hatton's assertion is twofold. First, musical gesture negotiates
between the space defined by the shape of sound and the time through which it travels; music has
spatial implications. Furthermore, if this shaping results from musical forces, then this definition
suggests that musical gravity, magnetism, and inertia create musical gesture.
Following a brief explanation of each musical force and its respective implications, I will
use the Capriccio movement of the Ligeti Solo Sonata to demonstrate how these forces act relative
to one another and in combination, from the macro scale of the entire movement to the micro scale
of a single gesture. An understanding of the function of musical forces within the Capriccio will
afford an appreciation of the role of articulation—in cooperation with musical forces—in
heightening the experience of musical gesture. Last to consider is the practicality of an instrumental
technique that responds to forces identified within the music, and how this further externalisation of
musical forces recasts movement.
First, to clarify: musical gravity is the tendency of the music to fall in pitch or to lengthen in
duration of note values; musical magnetism is the tendency of music towards tonal and/or metric
stability; musical inertia is the tendency of music to continue in the current direction of motion,
and/or with the same note values, (or to stay at rest).16
This application of physical forces to musical
motion has basic implications: gravity causes descending passing motion; magnetism causes motion
to 'neighbour tones'; inertia causes ascending passing motion.
Musical forces demystify the virtuosic Capriccio.17
The intricacy of this movement results
from the sheer speed of nearly identical patterns, and rapid shifts among a rich variety of textures.
The way in which physical forces act on the instrument is brought to the fore through the placement
of the cello in the centre of the dance as a participant in the interaction of forces, acting on bodies
and instrument alike. As there exist hierarchies of physical forces, so there also exist hierarchies of
musical forces: the governing forces of the movement are inertia, the original mover, and gravity,
ruler of formal resolution; the middle operational level is maintained by magnetism; the local level
constitutes three distinct gestures concerning important junctures within the music. There is rarely
ever a moment in which one force acts solely, even at the micro level. This simply means that
generalisations about musical forces may only be made in light of their relativity to one another.
The persistence of semiquavers—regardless of texture—immediately impresses the eye.
This perpetual motion is the result of inertia, which is, Larson reminds, 'stronger than gravity and
14
Steve Larson, Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music, (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2012), 22.
15
Robert Hatten, quoted in Larson, Musical Forces, 145. Interestingly, this definition could also be applied to
performative gesture.
16
Larson, Musical Forces, 2, 22.
17
Here I must resist the great temptation to analyse musical motion of the Capriccio according to the laws of physics
demonstrated by Newton's Cradle; the depth of that study would be well beyond the scope of Larson's theory, and
certainly more than my purposes require for the current discussion.
10. 10
more pervasive than magnetism'.18
During the continual ascent that begins on the third stave, inertia
must repeatedly overcome gravity to reach the next-highest register. It is important to note that at
any given moment in the piece, whatever other force may be present, it is acting in conjunction with
inertia. Indeed, the force of inertia carries the music through its many and varied textures. From
detaché, arguably the most inertia-driven, through to bariolage, which establishes magnetic pivot-
points, and then to tremolo, with an all-but-static bow: over the course of the first page, the music
loses inertia, and in so doing creates much of the character of the movement.
Another large-scale feature is the gravitational field of the Capriccio. The first section of the
piece begins and ends on G; when it reaches the G in the upper range of the cello, gravity forces the
line downward into the next section. This is consistent with how Larson perceives gravity affecting
global trajectories, and the 'strength' of pattern completion and frequency (this last observation is
especially pertinent to the Capriccio). The very first two statements of the Capriccio illustrate
Larson's observation, and the extent to which gravity may effect even the individual gesture.
Within these larger sections, the following characteristics establish a middle hierarchical
level. Magnetism repels turns around semitones, and initiates alternations (commonly of a major
third or semitone) that are then continued by inertia.
At the smallest level of detail, Larson identifies three 'graceful melodic gestures...[that
balance] musical forces'.19
A different force primarily creates each of these three gestures.
Magnetism causes the 'circling around a point of approaching repose,' (mm. 223-244), as the
ostinato pivots and the interval closes around G-sharp.20
Inertia carries the music through the elision
(mm. 110-116) of the arpeggiated plunge caused by gravity, and the quaver vacillation resulting
from magnetism. Gravity slows the music at the end of the first inertial build as it changes direction
(mm. 33-40). In this particular case, Ligeti has signalled his awareness of musical forces with the
marking poco allarg. . . .a tempo as gravity momentarily gains the advantage.
A basic knowledge about the interaction of musical forces within the Capriccio reveals how
articulation—namely the slur, which helps to transfer between textures throughout the movement—
intensifies the perception of musical force.21
In the very first gesture, the slur connecting the first
two semiquavers literally strengthens the magnetic repulsion from the G, thereby heightening the
feeling of inertia that carries the gesture back to G. Although this gesture starts and ends on G, the
slur renders it asymmetric, as can plainly be seen when the gesture is performed starting down-bow
and ending up-bow. The preliminary conclusions reached as a result of Robert Hatton's assertion
have been proven: here gesture is both heard and seen, blurring the distinction between space and
time; musical forces, in this case augmented by articulation, create gesture.
The theory of musical forces proposed by Larson provides a dynamic yet universally
relatable interpretive model. Because instrumental technique exploits physical laws to realise music,
these musical forces can often literally (and quite naturally) translate to technical directives. For
example, to achieve the effect of musical inertia, the bow requires inertia of its own, brought about
by horizontal impetus. It is the cello that unifies the total audio-visual effect of the performance.
The performance, in turn, reveals to the audience that musical and physical forces are one and the
same. In the panel discussion, the choreographer related her use of gravity to primal movement. The
18
Larson, Musical Forces, 100.
19
Steve Larson, 'Musical Gestures and Musical Forces: Evidence from Music-Theoretical Misunderstandings,' in Music
and Gesture, ed. by Anthony Gritten and Elaine King, 61-74 (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), 64.
20
Ibid.
21
Revision of the graphic score would prioritise showing how articulation affects the musical line (for example, in the
detaché semiquaver passages, how the slurs pull the music back and push it forward).
11. 11
downward spiral of the music pulls the dancers down to the floor; the repeated attempts of the
music to overcome gravity repeats circular sequences of the dance as they build to climatic jumps
and lifts. And so the impression of the performance dissolves the boundaries between music and
dance.22
22
See the discussion of Schoenberg's view on representation in art in the section 'Hybridity of Synaesthesia'.
12. 12
The Hybridity of Synaesthesia
Now focus shifts from the physical externalisation to the visual externalisation of music.
The completion of the graphic score necessitated inquiry into an intuitive reaction to its shapes and
forms based upon colour. By way of introduction, an exploration of audio-visual synaesthesia
further emphasises the importance of articulation. This account compares to that of Ligeti himself,
who documented his own synaesthetic experience.23
The context that situates these perspectives
both prompted the use of language to derive creative directives from the principle of synaesthesia,
before it challenged that very language as problematic.
But my foray into synaesthesia was simple enough. My friend, Emily Camras, experiences
synaesthesia. Conveniently, she is also a cellist who plays the Ligeti Solo Sonata.24
And the first
time I met the choreographer for the project, she insisted on colour to enliven the graphic score of
the music. So I asked Emily if she would consider colouring the Sonata in whatever way she
wished.
Before I approached Emily, I had naïvely tried to listen to the Capriccio in a 'different way,'
assigning a colour to each of ten smaller sections. It was to no avail. While at times I could
articulate the quality of colour, (bright : dark : : warm : soft), each listening of the brilliant
movement produced different, yet equally-plausible colours. What I desired is still elusive: an
'authentic' way to determine colour for the images of the graphic score.
Emily admitted that this was the first time she has taken the opportunity (not to mention
been asked specifically) to demonstrate her visual
perception of music. This is a page from the
coloured Capriccio she sent me:
Here to begin are a few initial
observations and reactions.25
Colours are based
upon pitch-class; register has no bearing on this
consistent colour association. And so the overall
visual impression is one of objectivity centred on
order and frequency, rather than a subjective one
conveying emotion or an interpretation as such.
But even at first mention of the Ligeti
Solo Sonata, Emily had responded eagerly,
saying that she loved the Sonata because of its
colours. She later explained that what matters to
her most is not the colours of the notes
themselves, (which remain consistent from piece
to piece), but the contexts in which these colour-
notes function. In the case of the Ligeti Solo
Sonata, of interest to Emily are the different tonal
23
All references to Ligeti's synaesthesia come from György Ligeti, Ligeti in Conversation with Péter Várnai, Josef
Häusler, Claude Samuel, and himself, ed. by Sir William Glock (London: Eulenberg),1983.
24
Yes, Emily is a real person! Since many cellists play this piece, the probability of finding one who does and
experiences synaesthesia is perhaps just as likely as finding a synaesthetic cellist.
25
A preliminary scan of this page will reveal the absence of green, a colour that has never appeared in Emily's
synaesthetic palette. While this might be simply coincidence, it is interesting that the colour theory of Kandinsky
defines green as the neutral compromise—lacking in spiritual energy—between earthen, concentric blue, and radiant,
celestial yellow. Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 57-60.
13. 13
centres and the relationships between them that the colours show. Above all, this colouring of the
Capriccio emphasises the high rate of change within the music.
In conversation with Emily, we quickly reached the understanding that for her, synaesthesia
is a systematic association. She remembered first connecting colours with numbers and letters.
When Emily learned the musical alphabet, these associations transferred directly to note-names, and
indirectly to the sounds they represented. It is significant that in this case, sound was not a factor in
the original discovery and/or establishment of audio-visual synaesthesia.
What gradually became clear, and potentially more revealing, is that once this audio-visual
connection solidified, colours would change their intensity to reflect the quality of the heard sound.
Accidentals took on different shades. Emily specifically mentioned that the articulation of the notes
affects the intensity of the colours she sees. It has been seen how articulation strengthens the effects
of musical forces to create musical gesture. Articulation now reemerges to influence the power of
colour in the visual perception of music.26
Although synaesthesia was originally a system for Emily,
it has evolved into a highly qualitative one.
But relating colour to other properties does not necessarily constitute synaesthetic
perception. Ligeti speaks about his compositional process, revealing a strong connection between
music and visual associations:
Certainly I have an aversion to everything that is demonstratively programmatic and
illustrative. But that does not mean that I am against music that calls forth associations; on
the contrary, sounds and musical coherence always arouse in me ideas of consistency and
colour of visible and recognisable form. And vice-versa: I constantly combine colour, form,
texture, and abstract concepts with musical ideas. This explains the presence of so many
non-musical elements in my compositions.27
Ligeti's spontaneous reaction echoes Schoenberg's statement on art (below). Here, Ligeti expresses
the transiency of sensory experience for both creator and perceiver. He both differentiates the
instant synthesis of perception from the progress of narrative trajectory, and underlines the fluidity
of synaesthetic perception—arising from its immediacy—that promotes creativity. And more
explicitly: 'Well, of course, I do have associations. I am inclined to synaesthetic perception. I
associate sounds with colours and shapes.'28
The surprise in this remark is that not only colour, but
shape as well, is a product of synaesthetic perception.
Before any conclusions are drawn, these case studies require situation in a broader
cognitive/linguistic/philosophical context. These above accounts categorically draw from
experiences of chromesthesia (in which the heard induces the seen). The synaesthetes who report
this variety are in the majority, a phenomenon most likely resulting from the proximity of the
primary visual cortex in the back occipital lobe to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe of the
brain.29
Emily's chromesthesia finds its echo in the first documented account of synaesthesia (19th
26
I certainly do not consider myself synaesthetic. However, the graphic score clearly shows how different articulations
that create different textures within the music are reflected by different intensities of colour (take, for example, the
bright, concentrated colours in the climaxes of the Capriccio, pg. 14, compared to the watery pizzicato chords of the
opening of the Dialogo, pg. 1). It could be argued that whereas my visual interpretation resulted from conscious
reflection, clinical synaesthesia constitutes an involuntary response.
27
Ligeti, Ligeti in Conversation, 67.
28
Ibid., 58.
29
Simon Shaw-Miller, Eye hEar The Visual in Music (Surrey: Ashgate, 2013), 13.
14. 14
c.) from the albino Ludwig Sachs.30
Sachs reported the appearance of coloured spots corresponding
to vowels, consonants, names, and numbers. This account reinforces Emily's systematised
association. Ligeti's synaesthesia, which involves shape, requires further investigation.
It is ironic that the language used to describe synaesthesia and its linguistic expression
(primarily in literature) is inherently flawed, a mere representation of experience. The expression of
synaesthesia in literature is just as telling of the general frustration with the inadequacy of language
as it is telling of the cognitive tendencies that synaesthesia suggests. Especially with regard to
sound, the findings of linguist Stephen Ullmann are illuminating.31
From the writings of twelve
nineteenth-century poets, (French, British, and American) Ullmann discovered 'tendencies among
distinct patterns in usage' of synaesthetic metaphor. From overall trends to the appearance of
specific combinations: metaphors move from the lower differentiated (those interrelated senses of
smell and taste) to the differentiated senses, (hearing and sight), and from differentiated to touch
sensations; auditory sensations require the most comparison to other senses; of these auditory
sensations, tactile sounds constitute the majority.
This consensus that touch is the 'ultimate' sense—at least in terms of linguistic metaphor
(already a complex relationship)—led me to derive kinaesthetic and/or physical sensations from the
music to serve as directives for its embodiment.32
While their nature shared similarities with the
images of the graphic score, these sensations often called upon the very experience of playing the
piece. They were feelings not necessarily felt, but certainly thought, albeit subconsciously.
Any conclusion based on the synaesthetic implications of language and its constructs is
quite different from a conclusion examining that language itself. The contest of philosophies that
Simon Shaw-Miller provides by way of example literally shows synaesthesia to be an unstable
concept, supported only by the flimsy foundation of language. Responding to John Locke's
hypothesis that different senses gave rise to different ideas, William Molyneux identified the lack of
cross-communication between the senses. In what became known as 'Molyneux's problem,' the
blind man who has only learned the form of a cube through his sense of touch is miraculously
endowed with sight, if ever through this latter sense he could recognise a cube. While Locke
answers this question, ironically, by presenting the falsehood of perceived synaesthetic experience,
Michel Serres critiques the very premise of Molyneux's problem by reaching to the source of
confusion: language. Because geometric shapes such as the cube are produced by language, and not
by experience, the fact that the blind man now sees is irrelevant. His sight fails to help him
understand an abstract concept that only truly exists in and through language.33
The conclusion, that
the existence of the cube depends upon the language that identifies it, explains Ligeti's claim that he
associates sounds with shapes. Shapes may constitute just as much a part of synaesthetic perception
as any other abstract concept produced by language.
The learned nature of language and its crude attribution to the abstract recall the arguably
detrimental outcomes of Enlightenment thinking and the Scientific Revolution. Although this use of
language, as noted above, can be revealing, language more often corrupts an already fluidly
functioning system of sense perception. According to Merleau-Ponty:
30
K. Dann, Bright Colours Falsely Seen: Synaesthesia and the Search for Transcendental Knowledge (New Haven CT
and London, 1998) in Shaw-Miller, The Visual in Music, 11.
31
S. Ullmann, Language and Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), in Shaw-Miller, The Visual in Music, 10.
32
See the list of touch/physical sensations for both the Dialogo and Capriccio included within the project portfolio.
33
M. Serres, The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies, trans. by M. Sankey and P. Cowley, (Cornwall: MPG
Books Ltd., 2008), 83, quoted in Shaw-Miller, The Visual in Music, 14.
15. 15
Synaesthetic perception is the rule [author's emphasis], and we are unaware of it only
because scientific knowledge shifts the centre of gravity of experience, so that we have
unlearned how to see, hear, and generally speaking, feel, in order to deduce, from our bodily
organisation and the world as the physicist conceives it, what we are to see, hear, and feel.34
His vocabulary and syntax blatantly underline Merleau-Ponty's message about an existence science-
saturated and disorienting. Shaw-Miller understands that 'For Merleau-Ponty, synaesthesia is not a
blending of the senses previously separated, but the unification of a primordial sense that is only
analysed and divided through habitual reflection.'35
Any synaesthesia identified today is but a
vestige of the robust 'primordial sense' that has largely been lost through the devolving influence of
language and the critical thought in which it functions.
It is not the mixing of the senses, though, that proves useful for my purposes; it is the space
between the senses where creativity flourishes. I propose that the extension of synaesthesia—from
an inter-sense to an inter-art analogy—is the prerequisite for understanding the interaction between
the arts. But because analogy is a linguistic construct, it is also inherently inadequate, and does not
account for the experience in reality of two things occurring simultaneously. First the analogy, then
the hybrid model:
sound : music : : sight : dance
sound-dance-music-sight
This juxtaposition shows how hybridity breaks down the rational sequence of elements to
encompass the whole interaction, regardless of the order of its parts. Through juxtaposition, the
attendant realisations are two: succession in the analogy transforms to instantaneousness in the
hybrid model; the attempted connections ('is to') in the analogy become acknowledgements of space
between ('with') in the hybrid model. The first realisation is that synaesthesia prises immediacy,
which is manifested in the dance through simultaneous music and movement. The same privileging
of immediacy could be claimed of the graphic score, as Schoenberg articulates:
In other words, art does not then represent merely the objects or the occasions that make
impressions, but above all these impressions themselves, ultimately without reference to
their What, When, and How. Inference of the original, external object is here perhaps of
only secondary importance due to its lack of immediacy.36
In addition to emphasising the immediacy of impression, Schoenberg reveals the trajectory of art's
focus from external to internal, from the objects themselves to the spaces between them and the
emotional impressions they make.37
This was the second realisation that the above juxtaposition
afforded. External : internal : : objects : spaces between. The paradox of synaesthesia is that even as
one sense defines another, and by extension one art defines another, the same principle also models
the disconnect between senses, and by extension, the space between art forms. Indeed, it is
34
M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. by Colin Smith (London, 1989), pp. 228-9, orig. publ. in
French in 1945 as Phénoménologie de la perception, quoted in Shaw-Miller, The Visual in Music, 15.
35
Shaw-Miller, The Visual in Music, 15.
36
Arnold Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, translated by Roy E. Carter (Berkley: University of California Press, 2009),
10.
37
Simon Shaw-Miller recognises art's path from perceptual to conceptual. Visible Deeds of Music, 1-35.
16. 16
impossible to fully integrate the different arts, but this was never the aim. Synaesthesia preserves
inexpressibility while offering a new perspective.
Perceiving distinct elements draws attention to the literal space between objects (the
physical bodies of cellist and dancers) or between communication modes (music and movement).
These various kinds of embodiment invite a sympathetic, synaesthetic response from the viewer.
While different bodies and different modes of communication naturally distinguish themselves from
one another, gesture (intrinsic to each) unifies artistic affect. Here no language is necessary. When
experienced together, each art form presents essentially the same gesture. This is what Simon Shaw-
Miller sees as the continuity of arts concepts, 'For it is useful to consider the difference between
music and the visual arts as a matter of degree, not of kind'.38
In the words of Kandinsky, '...the
same internal tone may be achieved by the different arts; each art will bring to this general tone its
own special characteristics, thereby adding to it a richness and a power which no one art form could
achieve'.39
38
Shaw-Miller, Visible Deeds of Music, 4.
39
Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 64.
17. 17
Cogitations on Collaboration
I originally approached the theory of musical forces with the intention of directly
transferring the forces identified as acting upon the music to the forces that the dancers would
respond to with physical motion. As the hybridity fundamental to the concept of synaesthesia can
attest, and as the choreographic process made me aware, the forces themselves are less significant
than the interactions between them. The process of choreographing the Sonata and the new
composition underlined the extent to which working with physical bodies is both bound by and
reflects the hierarchical interactions of physical forces. The levels of hierarchical interaction
between bodies within the dance space include: the relationship between the dancers, the kinds of
movement that typify the dance, the paths of movement that define the spatial structure of the
dance, the discreet motions within those trajectories, the specific intersections of sound and
movement, and finally the coalescing agent of gesture.
Prior to the rehearsal period, several collaborative parameters had been set. Risk was a
conscious choice and a creative decision, first invoked through the creation of the graphic score as
the basis of music-dance correspondence, implicit in the participation of the cello in the dance,
manifested in the complexity of the Capriccio choreography, and at the fore in the Lines for Gage
structured improvisation. The choreographed Capriccio (in order of chronological development)
utilises duet contact work, individual floor work, and task-derived gesture.40
Gesture unifies the
extremes and respective visual planes of floor work and contact work. The Lines for Gage dance
improvisation also constitutes three parts that roughly align with the three sections of Dan's piece,
each section corresponding in turn to one of three graphic score pages that Dan chose to interpret.41
Where the choreography of the Ligeti Solo Sonata simulated risk, the improvisatory nature of this
final part of the event presents actual risk. When one started to fall, the other was unprepared to
catch. The choreographed Lines for Gage explores bodies seated in dialogue, then falling to the
Earth, and finally climbing to the Heavens.
By exaggerating the differences between the two movements of the Sonata in their
respective graphic representations, I was already testing the fluidity of the collaborative
relationship. These differences previously discussed, between the visual representations of the
Dialogo and Capriccio, called upon very different intuitive reactions and creative responses.
The process of choreographing for cello (here I refer to performer, instrument, and music
played together) and two dancers afforded the opportunity to probe not only the relationship
between cello and dance, but ultimately that between sound and sight. There is never complete
reconciliation between cello and dance (reconciliation the ruling aesthetic, as seen earlier, of the
Mark Morris choreography). Now the cello becomes a part of the dance, instead of its governing
force. More than silence, it is the absence of movement that triggers this interaction, either from
cellist to dancer or dancer to cellist. The relationships forged allow the work to exist in the liminal
space between realising the fundamental ideas already imbedded in the music, and 'mirroring' or
pairing musical and physical movement. In the Capriccio, the circular arrangement of dancers
around the cello makes visibly clear Cage's observation that 'The interesting thing about the ears is
that you can hear things behind you.'42
In this case, the audience is hearing with their sight.43
Sound
40
For the specific task devised by the choreographer, as well as the list of touch/physical sensations that I derived from
the completed graphic score that helped her to refine the resulting gestures, see the list included in the project portfolio.
41
These pages, and the sections of the piece to which they correspond, are (by order of appearance within the piece):
Capriccio pg. 16-Molto Lento; Dialogo pg. 2-Without time, floating; Capriccio pg. 14-con moto.
42
'Chance Conversations: An Interview with Merce Cunningham and John Cage', YouTube: accessed 23 March 2015.
18. 18
both mediates between the energies of two dancers at opposing attitudes, and is the medium through
which the dance is literally 'seen'.
Choreographic vision prioritised creating a scheme for the final event over presenting self-
contained movements or pieces. Even before the completion of the new composition, the
choreographer was intent upon building this progression, which flows from the Ligeti Dialogo to
Capriccio, and after the panel discussion, finishes with Lines for Gage. Here the hybrid model from
the discussion of synaesthesia may conveniently be employed. The overall trajectory: solos—
duet—structured improvisation, whether interspersed solos, duet climaxes linked by simultaneous
motion, or structured three-part improvisation facilitated by prop; dancer relationships from
coincidental—conflicting—interdependent; movement from walking and sliding—running and
jumping—standing, falling, and climbing; paths of movement from linear—circular. In the Dialogo,
the arc of movement mirrors along the diagonal tangent of sound created by the cello. Ephemeral
melodies come and go as the dancers interchange in and out of the space. By contrast, in the
Capriccio, the optical effect could be perceived as planetary, machine-like, or atomic. To use this
last analogy, it is as though the dancers create an electron cloud of movement around the nucleus of
the cello. The perpetual motion of the music (itself a result of inertia) constantly moves the dancers.
Visually, too, while the cello alternately appears to generate motion, it also seems to hold the
dancers in that motion. And while the dancers' paths of movement may appear random, they are, in
fact, intricately interwoven. Just as the energy spent in playing each outburst is regained through the
charged silence that follows it, the dancers' flurry of motion finds fresh impetus in the collisions
between them both.
The duet—comprised of two male dancers—presented its own resistances, the challenge of
which further spurred choreographic development. Finding the 'soft edge' when meeting the floor
was counterbalanced by contact work that utilised pivoting and colliding. This dichotomy between
the soft edge and contact work is of course more deep-seated, extending beyond the choreographic
lexicon to the respective approaches of the dancers themselves. One proved fluid and flexible, the
other articulate and strong. This observation may remind listeners (and readers) of the archetypal
distinction evident in the music of the Sonata. Dialogo : Apollonian : : Capriccio : Dionysian.
That this dynamic duet was motivated by risk becomes apparent in the complex and
choreographically rich Capriccio. It was here at the end of the work that the visceral feeling of the
music decisively determined the process of working backward, for both painting and choreography.
The literal images that I began sketching (that correspond to points in the score at which the musical
forces are readily observable) found expression in the direct contact between dancers. The
predominance of contact lift work in the choreography, in turn, reflects the highly physical nature of
gestures at the cello.
The recycling and exchanging of movement motifs early became another prevailing
characteristic of this choreographic process. In the Capriccio, the process of choreography creation
parallels the generation of musical material. Identical movements are reordered and reconfigured
for different contexts, just as the musical melody is reborn through various textures. Simply,
movement : context : : music : texture. Largely due to this reusing and trading of physical
movements, the essence of the work is visible in every moment; ideas are evenly distributed
throughout. Structural integrity evident in the dance reflects the complex inner workings of the
Sonata. This integrity is exemplified by the tremolo passage of the Capriccio.
43
See the section 'Hybridity of Synaesthesia'.
19. 19
The choreographer referred to this subsection as 'underground,' an interpretation explained
by the appearance of the passage within the graphic score. Clouds of colour move through a 'tunnel'
of primary colours. But the movement of the dancers in this passage implies more than this
everyday allusion would suggest. It is instead a primal re-enactment. Two bodies grapple apelike
with the floor; when a body falls, we see how it reacts to what it meets.
Here the evocation of the primal belies the complex implications of the composite audio-
visual affect. While moving on the semi-circle, one dancer moves on straight-line paths; the other
traces the path of an arc. This specific dichotomy highlights the differences between episodic
materials that alternate throughout the whole of the Capriccio. These differences are made explicit
in the graphic score through the use of curt lines abruptly met on the one hand, and smooth contours
that move fluidly across the page on the other. Furthermore, the discreet motions of the dancers
within these paths demonstrate movement within a trajectory, similar to the activity of watercolour
in each of the nebulous shapes that together show the direction of the music. The movements
themselves do not reflect the shape of the melody. Rather, it is the structure and its component parts
of interest here: a melody repeated and then answered, reflected by three physical tropes within
their respective trajectories. In addition, two dancers moving around the cello could form a three-
part exchange that is, in fact, proposed by the music. Finally, what is temporally sequential in the
music—presentation of a melody and its near-inverse response—becomes spatially simultaneous in
the visual counterpoint between the two dancers. The whole and its parts are presented in a moment.
Specific intersections of sound and movement imbedded in the performance provide further
creative rationale for experiencing music and dance together. At poignant moments, sound and
motion join to suspend the perception of time.44
The tri-tone outburst and its resolution in the
Capriccio reprise of the Dialogo achieve this effect. In a handstand freeze framing the bass
eruption, the legs of the dancer straighten as the melody resolves at the zenith of the dissonant
arpeggiated chord. The continuation of the dance requires the resolution of the music, making
visible the mutual dependence between movement and sound.
It was the personal nature of the dancers' gestures that enabled their integration as one of the
last 'layers' of the choreographic process. Learned away from the dance, these gestures were the
only element of the choreography exclusively created by the dancers. The dance now became their
domain. The personal import of gesture is matched only by its creative function. The fact that
gesture synthesises elements of the entire choreographic scheme proves Ferneyhough's assertion
that 'Notation expresses the ideology of its own process of creation.'45
Just as performative gestures
at the cello inspired specific images of the graphic score, so these visual gestures motivated the
movement tasks and their emotive results.
44
The fact that this particular effect alters the perception of time differentiates it from the 'mirroring' of sound and
movement, whereby movement reinforces the listener's established sense of time in the music.
45
Brian Fernyhough, Brian Ferneyhough, Collected Writings, edited by James Boros and Richard Toop, (Amsterdam:
Harword Academic Publishers, 1995), quoted in Zubin Kanga 'Not Music Yet: Graphic Notation as a Catalyst for
Collaborative Metamorphosis', Eras, 16/1 (2014), 37-58.
20. 20
Conclusion
I would like to remain loyal to the process of this project, which has presented some form of
duality with every new development and investigation. After my reading for the project was
complete (or so I thought), and a few days before the final performance event, I was alerted to an
article written by Lawrence Kramer: 'Music, Metaphor, and Metaphysics'. Besides alluring with
alliteration, this article reinforced my approach to collaboration specifically, and to musical
meaning in general. It was first as a musician that I desired the physical extension of musical line
through dance, and so the motivation to find meaning within the music is a fitting end.
Kramer presents the stalemate familiar to recent musicological discourse: any discussion of
music either skims its surface or overanalyses it. Between these two extremes, though, may be
found an 'ideal interpretive distance,' which is the proximity of interpretation to its object.46
Kramer
approaches musical meaning from the ideal interpretive distance between metaphor and
metaphysics. Key to this position is that musical meaning does not pre-exist, to be 'brought out' in
performance, but rather is created in and through the particular circumstances of performance.
With musical forces and synaesthesia, I framed the ideal interpretive distance for this
project. Synaesthesia and musical forces : metaphor and metaphysics : : space between : ideal
interpretive distance. The process of collaboration has creatively proven these two approaches.
Kramer advocates for a reorienting of academic perspective:
It has to think of the search for such distance in terms, not of traps to be avoided, but of
opportunities to be embraced. Metaphors animate and renew meanings; metaphysics
supplies tools to think with. Metaphors can expand into metaphysics; metaphysics can
crystallise into metaphors.47
The format of this project offers a way to literally meet the 'dangers' of language and concept.
Musical forces and synaesthesia feed into collaboration, a creative solution for a theoretical
problem. 'Metaphors animate and renew meanings' through the graphic score. The hierarchical
interaction of physical/musical forces and the hybridity of synaesthesia are tools that allow us to
view the relationships within and between art forms. Progression from analogy (a prescribed set of
associations) to the hybrid model (which shows connections between a potentially infinite number
of elements) demonstrates the expansion of metaphor to metaphysics. The change in perception of
art has crystallised into the analogy
external : internal : : objects : spaces between.
The graphic score has helped to propose an ideal interpretive distance, because it engages
the viewer's understanding of metaphor (a function of language), and draws on his or her unique
experience of being (a product of the senses). Kramer asserts that these two can and should interact:
...metaphor and metaphysics are not antithetical terms; each depends absolutely on the
other. The critical position that ties metaphor with saying too little and metaphysics with
saying too much ignores this interdependence, which is vital, dynamic, and energetic. Music
46
Lawrence Kramer, "Music, Metaphor, and Metaphysics", The Musical Times, 145/1888 (2004), 7.
47
Kramer, 'Music, Metaphor, and Metaphysics', 10.
21. 21
gains part of its vivacity by becoming a medium for that dynamism, which is also the
dynamism of musical meaning, and, for that matter, of meaning in general.48
Neither the approach of musical forces nor that of synaesthesia is purely metaphor or purely
metaphysics. Precisely because both approaches freely partake of these experiences of metaphor
and of being (which both find resonance in the graphic score), their relationship demonstrates
integrity. This free exchange of metaphor and metaphysics flowed through the collaborative
process. Alternately, the resultant performance called upon the audience's understanding of motion
with regard to the fixed text of the Sonata, and prompted them to share their experience of being
with the performers, as all witnessed the unfolding in space and time of Lines for Gage with
simultaneous improvisation.
In the following statement, Kramer re-establishes his own interpretive distance from the
musical object. It becomes clear that collaboration facilitates musical meaning:
The meaning is neither in nor not in the music. Instead it arises from a complex confluence
of activities including listening, performing, remembering, visualising, imagining, and
commenting. The list is not exhaustive.49
By externalising these processes and therefore facilitating the interactions between them, multi-art
collaboration itself becomes one embodiment of musical meaning. In addition to presenting the
panel discussion as the 'space between' the two collaborative performance 'objects', I wanted the
structure of the final event to represent at some level this 'complex confluence of activities'.
Associations triggered by the performance could prompt questions from the audience that would
then inform the following improvisation for the dancers. Kramer identifies this kind of nuanced
interaction from which I wished the energy of the performance to draw:
[Musical meaning] is immediate, palpable, and easy to recognise. It is also intensely
interactive, highly sensitive to the circumstances of listening or performing. Its familiar
presence in multimedia situations is, indeed, just an extension, and sometimes a
representation, of its role in ordinary life.50
The diverse collaborative perspectives and mediums involved in this project necessarily maintain
interpretive distance. If, as Kramer implies, the circumstances of performance inform musical
meaning, then the experience of having sight and sound, music and dance present allows the
audience to perceive the ideal interpretive distance. Musical meaning happens the instant that
gesture—in all of its manifestations—unifies the total impression of the performance.
48
Ibid., 11.
49
Kramer, 'Music, Metaphor, and Metaphysics, 12.
50
Ibid., 12.
22. 22
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