Robin Fox for AORTA, Next Move 2013
What I love about composing music for contemporary dance is the exploratory nature of the collaborative process and the challenge of working from a germ of an idea and knitting sound and movement together to form a cohesive whole. Working with my partner in life, as well as work, Stephanie Lake is particularly satisfying as we have an in-built trust and mutual respect which allows us to go deeper on things.
Over the years I have come to appreciate that sound ideas that I don’t think of as ‘finished’ often work perfectly with the movement added as a layer in the overall polyphony of elements that make up the final product. With AORTA Stephanie wanted to explore the interior - the ‘mechanics’ of biology - the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the processes that keep us alive. So that’s where we started.
As with any great process of discovery, there were cul-de-sacs, fruitless experiments, ideas that seemed great in theory but that really didn’t work in reality. We began by trying to extract data from the performers using bio-sensors like heart rate monitors, brain wave readers and even galvanic skin response devices (lie detectors). In a comic moment I was trying to test the galvanic skin response sensor on my own and realised that I couldn’t lie to myself (denial doesn’t count….) haha.
Listening back to the soundtrack I’m immediately drawn back into that world of trying to balance the steady rhythms of the heart with the arrhythmia of so many other processes. Also trying to capture a medical feeling in Flatline, a balanced sonic ‘system’ in Homeostasis, a wetness in Wet Heart and a sense of the microscopic vastness of the human body’s interior in Slow Walk to Hell.
Creating this work was an amazing experience. I’d do it again in a heartbeat (….ok ok….kill me…)
- Robin Fox
Listen to the AORTA digital album here.
Released 1 April, 2020
All tracks composed, performed mixed and mastered by Robin Fox
Cover uses a detail from an image by Jeff Busby
