Composer for Contemporary Dance, Digital Artist, Photographer, Film Maker
Room tones are the sound of silence. I've borrowed the term 'roomtone' from the film industry, where regular practice is to record the stillness of a room or location after each shoot. That way, when various takes of are edited together, they can be glued into one continuous scene by a consistent audio background. Every environment has a…
2016 was an explosive year for me, and one that questioned some of the biggest issues currently surrounding our sense of identities. I started the year with Joli Vyann's jaw dropping dance-circus show Imbalance. Watching two dancers performing breath-taking moves while holding a mobile phone really puts into perspective how mad our lives can be. It is currently being…
In two week Lila Dance's The Deluge will start touring to rural venues across the UK. The immersive dance show has been adapted for the tour, so I took the opportunity to test my new Olympus E-M5 mk ii camera out, and shoot this short trailer video. https://vimeo.com/185670206 All footage was shot on an Olympus Em5…
Anyone familiar with my soundtracks will know that I am a huge fan of using field recordings to add a layer of everyday realism to live performances. This can be anything from a recording of an empty room to enhance claustrophobia (as in The Enormous Room), helicopters flying overhead in (Weightless), traffic lights beeping (A…
Depicted through a David Lynch-esque filmic style, The Enormous Room portrays a relationship between a father and a daughter who are trying to deal with grief. The soundtrack for The Enormous Room is a complex mix of dreamy nostalgic music and household sound FX. When I first met Stopgap’s Artistic Director, Lucy Bennett, to discuss her creative ideas I knew instantly that…
Originally published on IevaKuniskis.com © Judita Kuniskyte As a seasoned composer for contemporary dance, I’ve been asked a few abstract things in my time, but Ieva’s request to me this week at The Point has to go down as one of my absolute favourites! We have a section in They Live Next Door affectionately titled the Man Waltz, because the music…
Writing a soundtrack for contemporary dance can be pretty varied, and as both Co-Artistic Director of Lîla Dance and a freelance composer I've made more soundtracks than most. Over the years I’ve made everything from abstract soundscapes to rock and roll and drum and bass. So one thing I’ve found is that you can quickly…
Last week I finished my second contemporary dance soundtrack of the year. This time it was for the lovely and talented Tim Casson who has made a family friendly piece on Stopgap's SG2 Company, called Night at the Theatre. It's a show about three unlikely characters (Hannah Sampson, Nadenh Poan and Connor Quill) accidentally stumbling into…
I wizzed over to Ghent (Belgium) on the Eurostar for three days this week, to work with an inspiring inclusive dance company called Platform-K (english link here). I'm currently composing a new soundtrack for a dance work being choreographed by George Adams for Integrance, a project funded by EU Culture Programme, which brings together Sg2 (Stopgap Dance Company’s…
It was my huge pleasure to perform at the magnificent Wilton's Music Hall for the opening night of their brand new Strike! Dance Festival. As the oldest musical hall in the world, it is one of London's most precious and hidden gems, and it resonates history and charm in every room. I also had the rare…
Dougie Evans 