Sp3 is shorthand for “space, pulse, pattern, and presence,” four abstract concepts from which this interdisciplinary music and movement work grew. Sp3 obliquely grapples with the increasingly post-human nature of modern living, where technology is wedged between us and everything, breaking into our interpersonal relationships as well as our relationships to time and our environment. The performance seeks to disrupt this interference, relocate the organic, and position the notion of presence as something radical.

Sp3’s 60 minute original musical score is heavily inspired by “pulse pattern minimalism”— popularized by composers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley—as well as the techniques of DJs, and colored by the rich, uncanny sounds of analog synthesizers.

Clear, formalist architectures, created through light and choreography, are populated with densely textured movement, created from Bridge’s improvising body and translated to a company of six dancers over a research and practice period of two years.

Sp3’s movement incorporates clarity of line, specificity of gesture, and detail of facial expression to create clear, formal architectures that are populated with densely textured and complex movement. Bridge’s choreography unfolds in direct relation to the music, creating spatial analogies to the sound and using shared approaches to patterning (for example, canonic relationships or movement phrases that loop, repeat, and phase in and out of sync with each other). Price’s electronic music score uses algorithmic approaches to pulse pattern minimalism— music created with a steady pulse but with the rhythmic complexity of shifting accents and cross rhythms. Both analogue and digital approaches to timbre synthesis create a layered, multifaceted sound world that is complex yet accessible.

Creative Team

Director/Composer: Peter Price
Choreographer: Megan Bridge
Performers: Megan Bridge, Marie Brown, Ann-Marie Gover, Megan Wilson Stern, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Kat Sullivan

Press

FringeArts Interview

ThINKingDANCE Review by Julius Ferraro