Tap dance performance

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Tap-N-Bass by Lalya Gaye, Valerie Bugmann and Alexander Berman. It is basically an improvised tap dance performance where the sounds of wired-up tap shoes are picked-up by piezo contact microphones and remixed live, resulting in drum-n-bass-inspired music.

Drum-n-bass is one of the most exhilarating music styles that have emerge during the last few years. Noticing pattern similarities between certain rhythms in drum-n-bass and in tap dancing, we decided to see what would happen if we crossed these two genres. In Tap-n-bass, we aimed at making a tap dance performance that would produce booming bass and fast syncopated rhythms reminiscent of drum-n-bass, while staying true to the genre of tradition of tap dancing and its characteristic sound. The music is produced live by sounds picked-up by contact microphones attached on the shoes. The sounds are filtered and remixed live through a mixer board and custom-made program run on a laptop. The Tap-n-bass performance is improvised and collaborative, in terms of the dialogue established between the laptop remixer and the tap dancers.

Originally posted on pasta and vinegar by Rhizome