Fragility: An Exploration of Polyrhythms

Fragility: An Exploration of Polyrhythms is a live work-in-progress and interactive game that explores interpretations of polyrhythms through music, dance, physics, and technology, created by composer/drummer Susie Ibarra. This piece incorporates a multi-channel installation and live music, choreographed and improvised movement, custom built motion capture software and features multi-percussion compositions with strings and electronics. Dancers interacting with the polyrhythms follow delicate parameters that shift in response to the music. The interactive game is testing the ideas of relating chaos theory, symmetry, and Conway’s game of life to polyrhythms.

Fragility: An Exploration of Polyrhythms was created in collaboration with lead choreographer Susan Sgorbati, physicist Bernard Grossman, performing choreographer/dancers Souleymane Badolo and Yanan Yu, sound engineer and sound design by Justin Frye, interactive programming by Tommy Martinez and Greg Fox.

Fragility: An Exploration of Polyrhythms is commissioned by Asia Society’s Creative Common Ground, an initiative supported by a three-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, developed in partnership with the Pioneer Works’ Residency Program, and supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.