In the days prior to my first session with my collaboration partner, Violet Savage, I took some time to consider the kind of sonic palette that I could work with, particularly within a modern dance framework.

With the sound of the skipping rope amplified by contact microphones placed on the floor, it became apparent to me that there would contain some sense of ‘pulse’ within the piece, a kind of of percussive momentum at the foreground. This is starkly at odds with my main practice, which sees an absence of time measures or rhythms. I would essentially have to suspend my usual methodology and explore new possibilities.

I described to Violet my initial thoughts regarding the kind of sonic palette we could create together. I felt that not only should the sound of the skipping rope striking the floor be amplified by the contact – microphones, but that they should be recorded and looped – as though the performance were haunted by past dancers, or her own actions.

Violet agreed, stating that failure and exhaustion when skipping is a key idea for the piece- to emphasise and ‘haunt’ the space with the sound of her past failures would be deeply resonant. I noted that through repeated looping and treatment with delays and reverbs, we could accumulate a dense wall of noise constructed through the many repeated strikes of the skipping rope, essentially turning a rhythmic pulse into an expansive drone. This too was met with enthusiasm.

Despite having not yet entered the dance studio space, I felt that the sound itself shouldn’t be too ‘treated’ and stretched beyond recognition. I didn’t want to impose my aesthetic tendencies on what is ultimately, Violet’s spotlight. After all, the piece would involve me and my equipment off to the side of the performance space. I began to prepare my setup, which I believed should be rather minimal.