Chladni Figures

2009

choreographed performance game for seven voices

Detail from the choreographic score for Chladni Figures
Choreographic score for Chladni Figures

Chladni Figures is a choreographed performance-game for seven singers. Each participant sings an opera aria of their choice whilst moving around the space in a formation governed by a Chladni pattern.

Chladni Figures is an extemporization on a section of As I Have Now Memoyre, in which a singer’s voice is inscribed on a perspex plate in the form of a Chladni pattern. Chladni figures are patterns formed when vibrating particles accumulate at the nodal points of a surface. The piece was therefore conceived for performance in the same context as As I Have Now Memoyre.

Chladni Figures was first performed as Battling Sopranos in February 2009 at Kings Place, London as part of Mimomaniac’s debut show, ‘The Meaning Between Us’, for Sound & Music’s series of monthly experimental music nights, ‘The Sound Source’.


Technical Requirements for Performance:

  • Seven solo singers, each with earphones/audio player
  • PA system
  • Space large enough for movement of performers