Francisca Morand and Javier Jaimovich direct this interdisciplinary work that investigates the nature of emotion with an interactive system that modifies sound based on the physiological signals of the dancers.
What is an emotion? Is it a state of soul, mood, a physical sensation? These questions mark Emovere, a work that unites movement, sound and technology to investigate the nature and subjectivity of emotion.
The dancer and choreographer Francisca Morand co-directs with the researcher and sound artist Javier Jaimovich. On stage the dancers move with a sensor on their thigh, two on their arms and one on their heart. Their muscle tension and heart rate signals are encoded and associated with sound objects that are activated according to their particularities. Then, with a movement of their leg they can increase the volume or modify the frequency of the sound with one arm. But they do not have absolute control, because although they follow a choreography, their bodies always generate variations that are reflected in the sound, which in turn affects their movements.
"You enter an emotional state and you move and sometimes it is not very controllable and that is somehow reflected in this trip. Despite all the structure that we have tried to put into it, there is always something that we cannot control. It is talking about life itself," says Francisca.
The dancers trained using the Alba Emoting method, which allows the induction, modeling and experience of emotions from postural and respiratory patterns. The voices of the dancers Poly Rodríguez, Pablo Zamorano, Eduardo Osorio and Francisca Morand are part of the sound objects of the work. “I do not conceive this work as something that I can listen to at home only from a sound point of view and the same thing happens with movement, it is something that only works when it is united,” explains Javier.
