In fluence – site specific

Dance performance and sound installation

The Project
A sound installation which the audience can freely experience and a dance performance taking place periodically inside the installation.

The dance performance
Three dancers, like human seaweeds, immersed deep into invisible water. Passing by streams are taking control of the bodies, making them move, turn, swing and swirl. The liquid mass is materialized by the performers’ bodies, turning into visible the invisible environment, its texture and quality. With In Fluence the choreographer evokes, in an allegorical form, the dense and powerful network of influences, social, cultural and psychological that we are subject to from our birth, and even before. Consciously or unconsciously we are infinitely moved by the streams, while we create and cast our own streams to others. In an eternal attempt to find balance, take control of our step and walk forward in life.
The piece invites the spectator in a meditative reflection.

The sound installation
Working for many years on the concept of sound spatialization, the composer, has conceived this installation as a multisource sound composition.
1st source : Eight bamboo canes are hanging from above. They contain mini-speakers which make the canes resonate through their length. The sound recalls water and its streams, a habitat where canes are usually found growing. The installation is experienced as a flowing stream of resonating sonic material which moves in space above the audience’s heads.
2nd source : Two regular sound speakers placed in the space around the audience ‘’wash’’, from time to time, the sound space with waves of white noise.
3rd source : 3 wind-instrument performers are hidden in another space, near the installation playing a simple free score timed with a stopwatch.
The installation explores the possibility to create a hybrid object between a natural element and a musical instrument. The cane is an archetype of a wind instrument, a hollow pipe where air flows through and resonates. The hanging canes transform the location into a listening spot, where space becomes a crucial fact for the listener: a complex sound object which can be explored with one’s ears. The score is created site-specifically, based on the resonating frequencies of the canes.

In Fluence has been originally created for Royaumont Abbey in France and presented to the public for the first time in August 2018.

This piece is a work-in-progress.

The artists
Choreographer : Efi Farmaki
Sound Installation : Alessandro Perini
Dancers : Lucie Gemon, Marta Capaccioli, Pierre Theoleyre

Sound Installation of 8 bamboo canes
Réfectoire des Convers, Abbaye de Royaumont, France