Ballet Moves (for dancer & electric keyboard) – COLIN McKELLAR


“Ballet Moves” – performed by Chun-liang (dancer) and Sandra Tan (keyboard)


Program Note

Having become increasingly interested in contemporary dance movement as an artistic form, I set myself the project of writing a piece for dance, scored for solo piano. I composed 42 musical motifs in various time signatures, I then interpreted, or envisioned a dance movement, that I felt belonged to the sound of each. These movements being expressed in layman terminology, to be interpreted in creative dance.

Each motif then went through two further processes of musical development. From the movements, I have found three different sequences of linking the moves, in ways that seem to hang together artistically. The resulting ordering of events forming the body of musical material as well as dance movement. Also, in the original concept, there is the idea of re-processing the live dance onto screen, behind the actual dance, as another level of simultaneous realization of the work.