Detroit Dance Theatre

Summer 2022, I joined the inaugural Detroit Dance Theatre cohort. Detroit Dance Theatre (DDT) is an interdisciplinary, dance performance collective. The initiative connects Detroit movement artists with artists abroad to come together sharing artistic and life practices through the creation of new collaborative work. DDT brings artists together to ask, “How might we cultivate shared practice that heightens the possibility of celebrating differences rather than avoiding or collapsing individuality toward consensus?”

As part of the inaugural cohort, I created a custom haptic/sonic design for the performance and coordinated with the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) to have ATHE conference attendees attend the final performance. The performance took place at the Detroit Music Hall in the outdoor amphitheater.

Devil’s Shoestring - Detroit Dance theatre’s debut production

Detroit Dance Theatre's debut production, Devil's Shoestring (2022), is a collaboration between Jerwaun 'Renegade' Suddun, Antonio 'King FL3X' Heath Jr, Roydell 'Bam Bam' Shannon Jr, Orlando Hunter Jr, Ricarrdo Valentine, Jessica Rajko, Shaina Baira, and Bryan Baira. We came together for 5 intensive days to share and collaborate with their respective forms of Krump, Afro-Contemporary Dance, Haptic (Vibrotactile) Media Design, and Physical Dance Theatre.

My personal contribution was the design of an audio/haptic interface. I built two wooden haptic boxes that were buried under 3 tons of soil for the performance. The boxes were controlled using Max/MSP software, which communicated via a MOTU Ultralite-mk5 and 2 channel Crown Amp. The setup used both prerecorded and live audio to drive the haptic boxes. All audio modifications (pitch, reverb, playback, etc.) were performed in real time.

During the creative process, I worked with each dance artist to design the haptic feedback. Through ongoing discussion and iterative exploration, the final media design both amplified and conceptual connected to each artist’s dance form and choreographic concepts. This project was one of my first investigations of haptic design exclusively for live performance.