My paint tap dances

My paint tap dances

I wanted to try to visually capture the rhythms of my responses to my top 10 bands through tap dance.

I have always wanted to put paint on my tap shoes and dance and see what happens-Performance art with a product at the end.

Because I did this whilst back at home, although I had the space I wouldn't have in Leeds, I had limited resources. My Dad brought home a few big sheets of paper (off cuts of maps) and I had orange, purple, brown, green and yellow paint. This meant that I didn't have paper for all the different songs and I didn't have all the colours I associate with the music (it is noticeable from my collages that blue is an important colour and I didn't have it.) 
Ironically these maps are a metaphor for "mapping the expression of sound".

It was very messy and quite slippy dancing so bare feet was definitely best although tap shoes would have made a much better sound. 
It was quite difficult dancing on a small area with sticky paint so the actual technical quality of the response wasn't as good as the previous recordings.
Had to stop and add paint broke rhythm and also made you use your brain in another way to chose the appropriate colour.

I made 2 videos per dance.
1. Captured the whole dance, the whole movement 
2. Focused only on the feet and the creation of the painting.

I really like that there is a product at the end of each dance response. It is individual and unique to each song and to the exact moment I was responding. It is interesting how the different paintings do reflect each song to an extent. 

They capture the essence of each band, of that song and of the genre I suppose. 
Eg) The grunge song "Unwind" is very heavy/dense, with dry marks, quite dark with energetic outbursts of colour. 
The 70s song "You're the one" is much more spaced out, warmer, filling a much larger page. This represents the funky rhythms.

The Doors - "People are strange"

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - "Hot Wax"
I really feel like the vibrant orange and green are really expressive of the wierd music. Their music is extremely rapid, full-on and high energy and the density of the image portrays this.

Fanny - "You're the One"

"Love cats" - The Cure

"Somebody to love" - Jefferson Airplane

"Unwind" - Green River