At a time when the term creativity is as overused and degraded as guaranteed weight loss, true envelope-tearing breakthroughs are worth a standing ovation. Here are two that made the news this week:
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
A WHEELCHAIR FOR DANCING
University of Southern Florida professor and dancer Merry Lynn Morris decided years ago that anyone should be able to dance, even if their bodies didn’t appear suited to it. Years of work, much of it of the backyard variety, yielded the Rolling Dance Chair, which allows its occupant to move about a floor with the grace of a swan.
Sensors in the seat allow its occupant to provide instructions about the sort of movement they are looking for, leaving the arms and hands free to move in space, if that is possible.
There’s a wonderful article about Morris’s intensely personal journey to the dance chair on the Tampa Bay Times website, here.
Here is a short video that provides a bit more background on Morris’s invention:
A MOVABLE, INFLATABLE CONCERT HALL
A design competition sponsored by the Lucerne Festival gave birth to a giant pink-purple blob that is, in prosaic terms, an inflatable concert hall.
We’ve all seen inflatable tents for indoor events. This takes it to a mammoth scale, incorporating space inside for all sorts of flexible seating configurations for up to 500 people as well as a combination stage and acoustic shell.
This concert hall, known as Ark Nova, is making its début today in Matsushima City, Japan, at a cross-genre music festival being held in one of the many tsunami-devastated parts of the country. Gustavo Dudamel is one of the many guests at this festival, which has a strong youth focus.
The wood for the stage and acoustic shell was salvaged from tsunami debris. The entire structure was co-designed by British sculptor Anish Kapoor and Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. The building in supposed to inflate in 2 hours and be relatively easy to transport to any location accessible by transport truck.
The outside looks decidedly strange. I’m sure Siegmund Freud would have had a lot to say about the interior, but suffice it to say that there is nothing like it in the world — and that’s a wonderful thing.
You can read a bit more about Ark Nova here.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
