IDEAS Performance: Head over Heels |
||
|
||
DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT: Theatre and Dance MFA student in Sound Design, Grady Kestler, will introduce a live performance of Head over Heels, an interactive work featuring saxophonist Steven Leffue, choreographer Anne Gehman and AIIS, an electronic improvisatory performance system. The Thursday, March 31 performance is the latest in the IDEAS (Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences) series in Calit2's Qualcomm Institute. Head over Heels is a performance piece created and directed by Grady Kestler exploring interaction between performers and technology. Choreographer Anne Gehman and saxophonist Steven Leffue will perform with AIIS, an intelligent electronic system developed by Kestler and Leffue for improvisatory composition. AIIS senses and reacts to the performers by generating musical structures and graphical content (to be displayed on the Qualcomm Institute's high-resolution Vroom video wall in the Calit2 Theater). Audience members will also have the opportunity to experience the performance via other virtual-reality systems in Atkinson Hall at UC San Diego, and they will have the opportunity to interact with the technology after the performance. The AIIS interactive performance system was developed in the university’s sound design studios. Influenced by such artists as Merzbow, Borbetogmagus, Evan Parker, Peter Evans, and Nate Wooley, the electronics are not only generated by processing of the saxophone's material in real time, but are also generative: they create content according to analyses of texture, saturation and volume. Performance by: Created/directed by: SPEAKER BIO: GRADY KESTLER is a Theatre and Dance MFA student (in Sound Design) at UC San Diego, where he earned his BA in Music/Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts (ICAM), with a Minor in Computer Science. Working under Theatre and Dance Professor Shahrokh Yadegari, Kestler has worked on multiple interdisciplinary projects combining artistic and engineering skill. Among these projects are the MUGIC protocol, a transaction-based graphics programming tool to be used with the Qualcomm Institute's virtual-reality system, and the Space Unit Generator, three-dimensional and binaural audio implementations of Dick Moore's outer room model for spatialization. Along with his artistic endeavors, Kestler is also pursuing his interest in Digital Signal Processing through the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. STEVEN LEFFUE is also a Theatre and Dance MFA student (Sound Design) at UC San Diego. He holds additional degrees from Bowling Green State University, University of Florida, University of Maryland, and the Conservatoire National de Region Boulogne Billancourt. Leffue is a frequent collaborator with OBIE award-winning theater company Hoi Polloi and a cofounder of the Brooklyn-based performance venue, JACK. Theatrical credits include Baal, The Georges: A Brief History of Japanese Theater, WGRG-TV, Plato's The Republic, Beckett Solos: Cascando, Footfalls, & Rockaby, Night Blooming Jasmine, Cassavetes Shadows, Alarmed, Outcry, and Billy the Kid: First Exhumation (2009 DC Fringe Festival). ANNE GEHMAN is a Theatre and Dance MFA student (Dance Theatre) at UC San Diego. She is a co-producer of youTurn Contemporary Arts Exhibition and a member of Blythe Barton Dance Company, Somebodies Dance Theatre, and Golden Corpse Butch Ensemble. An instructor with both San Diego Dance Theater and the Academy of Performing Arts, she specializes in task-oriented and research-based movement emphasizing release technique. Gehman co-directed and choreographed The Warrior's Duet with Circle Circle Dot Dot in San Diego's first Fringe Festival, nominated for an SD Bravo Award for Best Play 2013. She earned her BFA in Dance from Jacksonville University, and an AA degree from Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida. She is a alumna of the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Gehman has worked with Jacksonville Ballet Theater, Backlight Theatre, Fusionworks Dance Company (in Rhode Island), Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater, and Ion Theater Company in France. MORE INFORMATION: Admission is FREE and open to the public. RSVP requested to Trish Stone at tstone@ucsd.edu. |