Orchesography

version for bitKlavier
(see also version for violin and piano)
duration: 8’

purchase score
performed by Cristina Altamura

About the work

1. An open Step outwards
2. Sink and Rise in moving
3. The Presence of the Body

About the work

Long ago I came across a digitized version of a manuscript called “Orchesography. or, the Art of Dancing,” by John Weaver, published in 1706. Orchesography is a word for dance notation and according to the manuscript, “the whole Art” of dancing “is explain’d; with compleat Tables of all Steps us’d in Dancing, and Rules for the Motions of the Arms.” I found the language in the manuscript both precise and poetically evocative of specific ways that a body can move. Music is usually connected to motion for me, and as I read through the manuscript, musical ideas started popping. When Dan asked me to write for bitKlavier, I felt that it was the perfect format for these ideas because of the ways that bitKlavier expands the range of techniques available on the piano. Each movement: An open Step outwards, Sink and Rise in moving, and The Presence of the Body, takes its title from Weaver’s text and aims to give a sense of embodied motion and sensation.

Each of these make subtle use of bitKlavier’s capabilities; on hearing alone, it might be unclear that there is anything other than a conventional piano at work (though the last one, The Presence of the Body, has a delightful and unmistakable tuning wobble, from bitKlavier’s spring tuning; and the end of the first one time travels in a distinctly bitKlavierien way).