The point of departure for my artistic research project is my composition Ng for three dancers and three musicians (without instruments), composed in 2014. At that time I pursued ideas of democratization of sound through movement, towards a new silence by abandoning the musical instrument and in localizing the sounding music material in moving, dancing bodies. I attempted to close the gap of interpretation between music and dance, indeed reaching for interdisciplinarity but an interdisciplinarity that would still recognize the immanent knowledge and vast understanding of sounds in the (western) music tradition and movement in the dance tradition. I asked if localizing the music material in the sounds of dancing bodies could be a substantial addition to the field of western music, if it could challenge how music notation is approached and if it could be part of expanding how musical structure is thought of beyond how it’s communicated through notation; could the time measuring mechanisms of music change? Could it advance the way spatiality is approached in music?
In my artistic research project: Ng revisited, I intend to challenge the original composition and the notions behind Ng, investigate them and experiment on them through artistic practice, meditate over them from perspectives gained from current music and art theory and develop them further with new songs and pieces. Finally I will revisit Ng and rework it with the knowledge I’ve gained during the artistic research period. In juxtaposing Ng and Ng revisited I hope that my research questions, my methods, the context of my research and whatever new knowledge my research project can offer will become clear while simultaneously activated by (and contained in) my own artistic practice. As such concept, form, material and presentation would become inseperable.