Interactive Tango Milonga An Interactive Dance System for Argentine Tango Social Dance by Courtney Brown A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Musical Arts Approved April 2017 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Garth Paine, Chair Sabine Feisst Pavan Turaga ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2017 ABSTRACT “Warning: tango contains highly addictive ingredients, such as pain, pleasure, passion, excitement, connection, freedom, torment, and bliss. In seven out of ten cases it takes over a person's life.” --Naomi Hotta When dancers are granted agency over music, as in interactive dance systems, the actors are most often concerned with the problem of creating a staged performance for an audience. However, as is reflected by the above quote, the practice of Argentine tango social dance is most concerned with participants internal experience and their relationship to the broader tango community. In this dissertation I explore creative approaches to enrich the sense of connection, that is, the experience of oneness with a partner and complete immersion in music and dance for Argentine tango dancers by providing agency over musical activities through the use of interactive technology. Specifically, I create an interactive dance system that allows tango dancers to affect and create music via their movements in the context of social dance. The motivations for this work are multifold: 1) to intensify embodied experience of the interplay between dance and music, individual and partner, couple and community, 2) to create shared experience of the conventions of tango dance, and 3) to innovate Argentine tango social dance practice for the purposes of education and increasing musicality in dancers. i DEDICATION For my parents Martha and Brent Brown, my twin sister, Heather Brown, and my partner in tango and in life, Brent Brimhall. I acknowledge and thank Brent Brimhall for being my tango partner as well as unpaid artist assistant and providing unwavering support throughout my doctoral studies. For spending so many nights in rehearsal while holding a sometimes grueling dayjob, for running errands and saving me in a thousand small ways that add up to so much more than their sum, for providing valuable feedback, especially in terms of movement and embodied expertise, for believing in me in moments when I did not believe in myself – thank you. I also want to thank my parents, Martha and Brent Brown, for their support and guidance. From them, I have learned that the most important part is the trying, not the outcome – life is a process. I thank my sister, who has come so unbelievably far after a tragic car accident and brain injury to lead a normal life in ways that the doctors claimed was impossible – she has been an ongoing inspiration. Without this mindset of perseverance, it is certain that I would never have reached this point. My family has also taught me the essential responsibility of each individual for giving back to the community and helping others in the ways that they are most capable and able. This work has been a reflection of my attempts to live up to that ideal. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I acknowledge the support and guidance of my dissertation chair and advisor, Garth Paine, whose artistic feedback, critical thought/perspective, example, and advocacy have been invaluable in my doctoral studies and my development as an artist and academic. I acknowledge and thank my committee members, Sabine Feisst and Pavan Turaga, who have been invaluable resources during my doctoral studies. Thanks also to Michael Simone, who showed me the ropes of corpus comparison and qualitative data analysis. I also want acknowledge for the teaching, support, and perspectives of many throughout my academic career at ASU and elsewhere including Lauren Hayes, Linda Essig, Glenn Hackbarth, James DeMars, Grisha Coleman, Christopher Wells, Newton Armstrong, Larry Polansky, Michael Casey, Jon Appleton, Doug Perkins, and Kui Dong. I would like to acknowledge the support of Heather Landes and Sha Xin Wei, particularly for their support for my application of the ASU Dissertation Fellowship. I would also like to acknowledge my fellow ASU graduate students including Garrett Johnson, Justin Kennedy, Michael Krzyzaniak, David Earll, Ryan Spicer, and Julie Cruse for perspectives and support. I also would like to thank the ASU staff, including Caroline Fernandez and Pete Weisman. I would like to acknowledge the help and support of several close friends and colleagues who have supported me and given valuable support through many transitions leading to this work including Gennette Gill, Linda Schleicher-Dilks, Carmen Caruso, Stefan Berteau, Luv Kohli, and Jeff Feasel. I thank Kristina Wolfe, who recorded bass snippets for an early prototype of the interactive tango system, reviewed musical scores, submissions, and taught me various tricks of the trade in addition to providing emotional iii support and artistic feedback. Also, thanks to Sharif Razzaque, my collaborator for Rawr! and close friend of countless years, whose advice and support has been invaluable. I want to acknowledge the support of the Arizona tango community members and their collective efforts to maintain a vibrant and growing scene. I would particularly like to thank Daniela Borgialli, who was instrumental in connecting me with an advisor in the Buenos Aires tango community and who also provided early advice and thoughtful comments. I would also like to thank Inja Vojnović, Steph Berg, Nicolas Tapias and Belinda Norton for their support and willingness to provide a platform. A very special thanks to all the dancers who took their time to participate in user studies and offer feedback. I would also like to acknowledge the help and support of my Fulbright advisors, Andrea Uchitel, Raúl Minsburg, Bernardo Piñero, and Ricardo dal Farra. I want to acknowledge the support of my fellow Fulbright scholars during my time in Buenos Aires, particularly Audrey Hall and Teresa Davis. I would also like to thank the Fulbright commission for giving me the chance to fulfill my dream of starting this project in Buenos Aires and the tango community in Buenos Aires. I acknowledge the generous financial support, funding and teaching assistantships, scholarships from Arizona State University, including the Herberger Institute of the Arts, the School of Music, and the School of Arts, Media, and Engineering. I also acknowledge the support of the GPSA funding and the support of ASU PAVE Arts Venture Seed Funding for this research. I acknowledge the generous support of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Dissertation Fellowship, which has given me the priceless gift of time for writing and completing this work. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Argentine Tango, Connection, and Musical Interactivity .............................. 1 1.2 Approach ......................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Overview of Terminology ............................................................................... 7 1.4 Overview of Structure and Methodology ....................................................... 9 2 INTERACTIVE DANCE SYSTEMS AND PERFORMANCE ........................... 13 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Interactive Dance Performance Systems ...................................................... 14 2.3 Interactive Art Installations ........................................................................... 32 2.4 New Musical Interfaces for Collaborative Music ......................................... 45 2.5 Concluding Notes on Interactive Dance Systems and Performance ............ 48 3 ARGENTINE TANGO: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXTS ................. 50 3.1 The History of Argentine Tango ................................................................... 50 3.2 Argentine Tango in the Contemporary Era .................................................. 58 3.3 Concluding Notes on Argentine Tango History and Social Context ........... 64 4 CONNECTION AND THE EMBODIED ARGENTINE TANGO CONTEXT ... 66 4.1 A Theoretical Framework for Connection Experience ................................ 67 4.2 How Dancers Describe Connection .............................................................. 82 v CHAPTER Page 4.3 Kinetic Connection and Dance Technique ................................................... 91 4.4 Concluding Notes on the Embodied Argentine Tango Context ................. 110 5 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR EMBODIED INTERACTIVE TANGO EXPERIENCE ...................................................................................................... 112 5.1 Embodied Experience in the Interactive Tango System ............................ 112 5.2 Interaction in Interactive Media Systems ................................................... 115 5.3 Design Considerations ................................................................................ 121 5.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................