process, and in finding a performance mode which articulated something of the creative unity we aspired to. First of all we thought about ways of closing the gap between the performer and other elements within the performance environment; taking the gap between the dancer and the music as our starting point.

One of the concerns we have for dance, is that dancers are often at the mercy of what is by nature a strongly cross-disciplinary, multi-media performance environment. The dancer functions as a single element within the traditional dance space, while the authors of that space: the choreographer, the composer, the designers etc. dictate the terms under which the dancer interacts and performs within it.

Of course there have been great advances in terms of allowing performers greater choice and freedom within performance through the development of improvisational techniques, chance and random processing etc. within both the contemporary dance and the contemporary music repertoire. However, there have been few significant and lasting developments in terms of practice since the late 1970s. While, Ironically, computers and the Internet are currently providing interactive environments in which audiences or viewers can manipulate dramatic narratives and thereby participate as authors of the work with which they are interacting. Indeed theatre and Internet audiences are increasingly being given the means to manipulate the activities and even the physical appearance of the performers, e.g. Stelarc. It seems high time that the dancer was given the means to manipulate and interact more fully with his/her own performance environment.

Finally we came up with a series of designs for what we called ‘sensitised performance environments’¹

(all of which were hard-wired), which created a more interactive environment in which a performer could manipulate two of the major theatrical elements of the stage; it’s lighting and it’s sound. This was achieved through the use of a variety of sensors which were embedded in the set, in the dance floor and in a number of theatrical props.

At the same time Mark Bromwich began work on a number of virtual instruments which included three ‘Virtual Instrument’ designs for the London Science Museum²

, ‘A Passage To India’ – an interactive sound sculpture commissioned, and now in the permanent collection, of Wakefield City Art Gallery.³ And a number of interactive sensory mechanisms for instrumentalist including the ‘Metabone’ for Trombonist Barry Webb.⁴

The sensitised performance ‘environments’ were a somewhat crude reflection of the kind of ‘interactive’ collaborative process which we had embarked upon. One in which choreography and musical composition were born at the same time in the same studio; each guiding and influencing the nature of the other, and with constant attention to the manner in which each could be generated, and coexist