“I loved the distinctive sound-characters that emerged throughout the work, sometimes in harmony with the floating shapes and sometimes in contrast. The sound in itself revealed a journey that tied the abstractions on stage to forms of relationships and dreamlike narratives.” 

Omer Backley-Astrachan

About Springtime Again.

Created in collaboration with choreographer Lilian Steiner for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed 2021, Springtime Again explores a deeply responsive relationship between sound and movement.

The work features custom-built interactive software designed in Max MSP, enabling real-time connection between the dancers and the sonic landscape.

A camera system tracks spatial movement, allowing the performers to actively sculpt and transform the sound world around them. Additional audio cues are triggered through sensor-enabled rings worn by the dancers, creating an intricate, dynamic interplay between gesture and music.

It’s Springtime Again, and the field is full of drama already in bloom,
– heard through the eyes and seen through the ears.

Nothing is impossible in curiosity’s wandering through the lava lamp.
Curiosity with a capital C can become a character.

Springtime Again portrays humanity through abstraction.

Individual personalities, desires, agendas and fates are held within and by group dynamics.
But as observers, we face our own projections

We are the protagonist,

But so is the other.

Perceived trajectories do not necessarily equate to narrative.
Freedom is in the curving of edges and the swallowing up by shadows and the turning away from the spotlight.

And dance does not belong only to human bodies.
If you close and open and close and open and open and close your eyes, you will see and hear and participate in the dance everywhere.

Now,
Sharpen and blur and resharpen your focus,
You are already shaping the constellation.

​- Programme notes by Lilian Steiner

Choreographer: Lilian Steiner with the dancers
Composer: Fiona Hill, played live by Fiona and the dancers
Costume Designer: Aleisa Jelbart
Lighting Designer: Alexander Berlage
Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellowship: Emily Newham: French Horn
Miles Mullin-Chivers, Cello
Audio Mix: Bob Scott
Recording Engineer: Sean Carey
Max MSP programming: Fiona Hill
Additional software programming and support: Benjamin Carey
​Photography: Pedro Greig