Godfried-Willem Raes

"Gestrobo"

a suite of studies for invisible instrument and robots

for an nude dancer, laptop performer and robot orchestra

This suite of compositions was started in 2002 and the number of sections and components increasing as we are building more robots for the M&M orchestra. All studies are designed to be completely interactive and receiving their inputs from a dancer. Musical voices can be assigned by the laptop player in real time. To this end the authors "Holosound" gesture control interface, based on sonar doppler detection, is used. For this reason, the performer has to be nude.

The automats that can be played are restricted to the following:

• <Troms>
• <Rotomoton>
• <ThunderWood>
• <Piperola>
• <Bourdonola>
• <Harma>
• <Player Piano>
• <Vox Humanola>
• <Klung>
• <Vibi>
• <Springers>
• <Dripper>
• <So>
• <Flex>
• <Tubi>
• <Belly>
• <Puff>
• <Trump>
• <Xy>
• <Bako>
• <Qt>
• <Krum>
• <Vacca>
• <Vitello>
• <Llor>
• <Psch>
• <Sire>

These robots constitute almost the entire robot orchestra built by the author up to the end of the year 2007. The setup on stage takes at least 120 square meters. The naked dancer should be placed central, surrounded by the automats.

Although the duration of the piece is not limited in the software, it should be restricted to somewhere less then 30 minutes. The minimum duration should be 5 minutes. The 'score' is completely embedded into the software.

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First try out: 15.08.2002 - Ghent, Logos Tetrahedron, M&M ensemble, with: Emilie De Vlam and the author. Further performances: Lille, Aeroneff, Maubeuge, Borderline Festival...

You can watch some videoclips of sections of Gestrobo as performed by the author by clicking the links below (ca. 3MB per clip):

GeroTrump - videoclip

 

Gestrobo - videoclip

Gestrobo was also performed in Leuven on march 17th of 2005, by Nicoletta Branchini and the author. Here are some pictures:

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Godfried-Willem RAES

Public Domain,august 2002