The Hum

Commissioned by Brighton Festival and Without Walls and funded by Arts Council England, South East Dance Agency, The Hum is a smartphone-based work which employs location data to deliver precomposed soundtracks to audience members at specified places within a city. It aims to draw attention to everyday activities reframing these as valid acts of choreography and challenging traditional definitions of what is thought of as dance and performance. To do so it takes advantage of the cinematic soundtrack to focus the public’s attention on these often overlooked unpremeditated choreographies in and around the city. The Hum seeks to question and elevate the status of these inadvertent acts of choreography by re-visiting the mundane activities of everyday life. At times profound yet often personal it is an immersive work that reveals an alternative view of the city through movements that take place within it.
The Hum incorporates text from four diverse artists including: international dance artist Wendy Houston, dance writer for The Times Donald Hutera, Maria Oshodi director of Extant Theatre Company of visually impaired people and live artist Pete Phillips to a sound score by musician James Keane. These writers explore the subtle qualities of observed and experienced movement to create their own idiosyncratic narratives ranging from the poetic and humorous through to the ironic and subversive.
Credits:
Direction, design and concept: Nic Sandiland
Writers: Wendy Houston, Donald Hutera, Maria Oshodi, Pete Philips, Nic Sandiland
Readers: Amy Lyster, Jodie Hawkes, Alonna Flexer, Caroline Hume, Donald Hutera, Robert Kingsley, Pete Philips, Mark Whitelaw, George Adams
Music: James Keane
Coder: DabApps
Producer: Yael Flexer, Lou Rogers

Associated academic presentations: Between Spaces Symposium, University of Chichester, June 29th – 30th 2017