In Earnest

1979, 14 minutes
music by Simon Desorgher,
dance and sound by Ernest Berk

In the late seventies, having completed the long Creation Cycle, I started to explore areas with more inherent realism, starting with dance. This piece is a recording of an improvised performance between the three participants made at the London College of Printing TV studio using monochrome cameras and the Videokalos Synthesiser. There was very little pre-structuring.

The dancer Ernest Berk was 71 years old at the time of this piece, and contributed to both the visual and aural aspects. After a lifetime of working with the visual limitations of the actual physical body, he appreciated the level of abstraction attainable with the way I worked, allowing him to free the body movements from their usual obvious visual connection with the body itself.

Simon was on flute and electronics, but also simultaneously processing the sounds created by Ernest. All three participants had visual and aural feedback of how each person was contributing to the final mix on screen.