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I(M)PRINT IN TIME

A Duet Between Dancer & Musician

I(m)Print In Time consists ofa playful tussle between dancer and musician, their control of the tempo and rhythms and ultimately each other's performance. 

Performed at Trinity Laban (2013) and Spontaneous Cumbustion Festival (2014). 

Duration: 18 minutes 

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Dancer: Sally Smithson

Musician: Fred Feeney (Trinity Laban), Harrison Atlee (Spontaneous Combustion) 

Technical Support: Katie Norman 

Photo credits: Christian Fisher

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Each score wasdivided into parallel sections, and each section accurately timed according to how long it took to perform (either dance or play

on the piano), providing two frequently contrasting sets of temporal data. There are some sections that took the pianist only a few seconds

to perform, whereas the dancer required over a minute to complete the movement…

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The potential to create a genuine inter-reaction was thus formed by varying the prevalence of one set of time data over the other, allowing one

performer’s score to imprint onto the others. At the start, the musician’s data was dominant and the dancer was confined

to temporal his structure. As the piece progressed, the time structures for the musician became disjointed, space between the notes opened up, and the musical phrasing became less defined in juxtaposition with the more visible rhythms and the sections determined by the dancer. Who is controlling who was an ongoing provocation for the audience throughout the performance.

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I(m)print was a promenade experience for the audience. Theyl faced the same temporal challenges given to the performers. With the

musician and dancer already in discourse, the audience entered at one end of the space, and promenade along the perimeter of the performance,

and exit the other side of the semi-circle. They repeated this as many times as they chose. However, prior to the performance, each audience

member was given a specific duration and a stop watch. The duration was be shorter than the full performance time…(18 minutes). How the audience

divided their viewing experience was up to them. The audience’s temporal choices and pacing (rhythms) became as much part of the performance as the dancer’s and musician’s.

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