This workshop is designed to introduce basic sound design principles to non-designers (choreographers, performers, rehearsal directors, anyone) using examples of chance operations and indeterminacy. Composers Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and John Cage—and their poetic, artistic, and choreographic parallels—will serve as point of reference for conversation in this class.  We will explore the composition process using the audio tools available in the popular (and free) design / playback software Qlab, including simultaneous sound playback, randomization, looping, time-based triggering, playback manipulation and warping, and other extended features of the program. Participants will learn new methods of subverting their natural musical and choreographic tendencies while familiarizing themselves with the sound design process and demystifying its technology.  This process can be applied to live choreography or dance on film.

Requirements:

No sound design or computer literacy is prerequisite, but participants must have a (somewhat recent) Mac laptop to participate, and be somewhat familiar with its interface. Participants should also bring headphones and a folder of sounds or music to use during the workshop.

Inspired by the DFA Archive:

Dance Films Association, Inc./ Dance Society Newsletter

Volume x, Number 2, October 1976

Ten Issues Annually

Virginia Brooks, Editor

Technical Topics- #1

Film formats: The 35mm Sound Filmstrip

We have had several questions about the use of sound filmstrips following the Spring Dance Film Festival in June which included the DFA produced sound filmstrip, “Isadora Duncan and the Art of the Dance narrated by Julia LEvian. This note will attempt to explain how this format differs from motion picture film.

A film stip can best be thought of as a series of connected slides each of which has a smaller frame size (projection area) than a standard 2×2 slide made from a 35mm transparency. The film strip runs vertically through a special film strip projector and gives an image with a horizontal format on the screen. The sound is usually on a separate tape, and the rate at which the images change is either controlled manually by the tape, and the rate at which the images change is either controlled manually by the projectionist at the sound of an audible cue such as a chime, or automatically in the case of some projectors such as the DuKane which synchronizes the strip to the cassette taped sound. (DFA is able to supply the Duncan film strip in either form.)

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