From ETC (Experimental Television Center) history -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2xtv5rl57k "Alan Sondheim Foofwa was with Merce Cunningham at the time, and we recorded him with a number of cameras which were switched on and off by my voice. The music had been prerecorded at ETC as well. The work emphasizes the physicality of classical ballet in relation to the real body and exhaustion of the dancer. I tended to work quickly at ETC in general; years before, in 1967, we had built a music synthesizer with VCO, VCA, etc. from scratch - there were no blueprints at the time. So I became familiar with analog controls early on - and the ensuing production techniques that emerged from them. ETC allowed this all to occur in what was, for me, an ideal workspace / livespace / playspace / dancespace/ performance space - an open loft next to the Susquehanna River (I grew up in Kingston, Pennsylvania, next to the same) - with a bookstore across the street, a still bridge which we could attach contact microphones to, a town with a gazebo perfect for dancework at 4 a.m. in the morning, nature and ponds around, and so forth. I remember a bat flying over our heads one night when we were falling asleep - wonderful! The equipment was relatively easy to use, and I tried to work with everything, including a very old character generator which was the core of some of my work. I loved the analog video synthesizers as well, which were more like living organisms - one negotiated with them, and that was always amazing. I used the Mirage Ensoniq constantly for music; its combination of analog and digital with floppies was breathtaking. Later I found a second-hand one but it gave out on me; I still try to find one to use for my music/soundwork. You ask about "citizen of the world" - but it was more like citizen of the Universe! The machines had an inner light of their own, and living and working in the same space meant we could get up at 4 a.m. if one of us had an idea, and work through the night. In the short times of the residencies, we were able to produce hours of finished work, as if there were always dialogs organically growing among us and the machinery, which had a life of its own. I remember beavers, Foofwa dancing on the railing of a pier overlooking a frozen pond, recording ballet and movie musical dancing on the street in front of the loft at 3 a.m. in the morning. It was perfect. I took that experience later to the work I did at the Virtual Environments Laboratory (VEL) at West Virginia University, Morgantown, and more recently to working with motion capture experimentation at New Jersey Institute of Technology, NYU, Columbia College (Chicago), and elsewhere. A certain grace and camaraderie with machines, bodies, intermixtures of analog and digital apparatus. And I work through this even now. ETC was seminal!" NIKUKO with Azure Carter and Foofwa dImobilite (YouTube) 121 views Sep 13, 2017 Foofwa d'Imobilite, Azure Carter, Alan Sondheim, Experimental Television Center, ballet, abjection __ _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
