The Sounding of Fancy Gestures: Visual in Music for the Performance “Camille” by Alexei Retinsky

Abstract

The relevance of the study. The creativity of Alexei Retinsky (1986) gives an example of universalism, in which the artist’s personality reveals itself not only in different musical genres, but also in various types of art (music, painting, photography). A. Retinsky’s syncretic ability was realized in the process of working on the performance “Camille” (2018) about sculptor’s Camille Claudel life and her creative drama. The electro-acoustic composition created as a musical part of the performance closely interacts with its visual components — butoh-dance, scenography, light. There are three reasons why identifying the mechanism of this interaction seems important: firstly, it brings us closer to understanding the style of young talented composer; secondly, allows comprehend the essence of the synthesis of arts in performance better; thirdly, enriches methods of analysis of electroacoustic music. This publication is one of the first musicological studies of the work of A. Retinsky, which justifies its scientific novelty.

Main Objective is to present the electroacoustic composition by Alexei Retinsky “Camilla” as a component of a complex genre of performance.

Methodology / How the study was done. Both empirical and comparative methods are involved in this study: visual ideas found in the performance’s “Camille” choreography and scenography are traced in the sounding as well.

Results/Findings and Conclusions. The interactions between music and the visual components arise in “Camille” in consequence of parallel implementation of identical ideas (symbols, contrasts and synesthesiae) in composition, choreography and scenography. Symbols include wave, circle and pendulum; various forms of presence these symbols both in music and visual parts are described. Contrasts — it means pairs of opposites that characterize the properties of choreographic gestures and sounding’s quality. Examples: line — dotted line, top — bottom, softness — stiffness, objectivity — generalization. Synaesthesia is construction and using for artistic purposes of causal relationships between gestures and sounding. Comprehension the music and visual components of “Camille” in their interaction helps to realize sense of this work as modeling non-vector time, as creation of extended in time and space “here-and-now”.