Yours

For Disklavier piano and projected body

2000 · 18m

[Excerpts 6 min 30]

Upon entering a room, the audience finds a grand piano and a video screen at its center, surrounded closely by chairs. As the lights fade, the pianist strikes the first chord, and a voice of a female narrator fills the space. Inspired by Samuel Beckett's Company, her words transport the viewers into a realm of imaginary companionship—an exploration of their inner selves.

The music ignites the projection of a nude male dancer, whose movements are shaped, recreated, and transformed by the musical gestures. The symbiotic relationship between the dancer and the pianist is so intimate at times that it resembles a puppeteer manipulating their marionette. Short gestures repeat in varied forms, capturing the audience's focus. A primal vocabulary of sound and dance gradually etches itself into the viewers' memories.

At a certain moment, the pianist interrupts their playing, and the projection fades into complete darkness. Guided solely by the female voice, the viewers imagine their own body movements. Then, the pianist-dancer returns, executing a dance sequence woven from the now memorized vocabulary. As time passes, all elements—the live pianist, the projected dancer, the female voice, and the audience—are entwined in a counterpoint of control and freedom, creating a tapestry of interconnectedness.

By activating the cultural memory, endless dancefilms and performances are created. (Martina Leeker, Tanzdrama 2/2001)

Awards

  • 2000

    • Best New Media Work: Festival of New Cinema and New Media, Montréal, Canada

Commission / Grants

  • ZKM | Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Premiere

  • 2000

    • ZKM | Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Presentations

  • 2000

    • World@rt Conference, Aalborg, Denmark
    • Festival du Nouveau Cinema et Nouveaux Medias, Montréal, Canada
    • Cross Fair: The Intelligent Stage, Choreographisches Zentrum, Essen, Germany
    • Warsaw Autumn, International Festival of Contemporary Music, Poland
    • Olhares de Outono Digital Arts Festival, Porto, Portugal
  • 2001

    • International Performance Festival, Odense, Denmark
    • Nielsen Academy of Music, Odense, Denmark
    • Technology and the Expanding Palette, University of California, San Diego, CA
    • Pollack Hall, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
  • 2002

    • Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany
    • Tanzquartier Wien, Vienna, Austria
    • STEIM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    • AudioArt Festival, Cracow, Poland
    • Minnesota State University Moorhead, MN
  • 2003

    • Belluard Bollwerk International, Fribourg, Switzerland
    • University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
  • 2009

    • Imagining Media@ZKM, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (documentation)