Interpreting notated works using the Terpsichora Pressure-Sensitive Floors

The Terpsichora Pressure-Sensitive Floors are a new digital musical instrument which uses whole-body motion to control electronic music. The instrument continues the development of early models for pioneering dancer Philippa Cullen (1972), expanding its use as an expressive and versatile musical instrument. Two works by Australian composer Cat Hope were adapted for performance with this new instrument. Delay Taints (2018), for dancer, cellist and subtone, is an animated graphic score that provided an opportunity to freely assign sonic choices to the instrument, and read notated body movement to control those choices. This adaptation contrasts with that of Majority of One (2016), for four sustaining instruments and room feedback, where two of the notated parts were interpreted on the instrument. Methods to produce continuously controlled sound using limited movements of the body were developed to replace the instruments featured in the original performances of this work. This work explores the difference in the embodied connection of gesture to sound between acoustic and electronic instruments and explores the idiosyncrasies in the navigation of time elements in music for the Floors. In addition, methods of performing with the Floors produces a new form of communicating electronic performance to audiences using full body gesture. Interpreting these two compositions by Hope using the Terpsichora Pressure-Sensitive Floors contributes new strategies for adapting animated scores for electronics using direct body movement.