Elisabet Curbelo González (composer and director) will collaborate with Verónica Santiago Moniello (dancer/choreographer), Elliot Patros (spatial audio and sonification), Somayeh Imani (biosensing), and Jayoung Kim (sensors). The performance is in part fulfillment of Ph.D. student Elisabet Curbelo Gonzalez’s dissertation toward her UC San Diego degree in Music Composition.

The as-yet-untitled piece will feature one or two dancers with sensors, vocalists and a small ensemble of acoustic instruments. The use of a performer’s body movements to control electronic music is not a new concept, but Curbelo has drawn on a small, interdisciplinary team of researchers to push the envelope and base elements of the planned performance on the creation of new sensors just coming out of UC San Diego laboratories. The wearable chemical-electrophysiological hybrid bio-sensing system simultaneously offers real-time monitoring of a biochemical (lactate) and an electro-physiological signal (electrocardiogram) for more comprehensive fitness monitoring than can be achieved with a physical or electro-physiological sensor alone.

The dancer will wear the hybrid biosensor during the performance, along with other sensors that are already on the market (e.g., the Wii remote sensor to monitor gestures, and various fitness trackers). “The sensor marks a significant contribution toward overcoming the trade-off between nonrestrictive form factor and the ability to measure hybrid data sets,” explained Curbelo. “The data will allow us to monitor dancers’ fatigue, while also controlling musical parameters in real time, creating an artistically interesting feedback loop and providing a mature test platform for the sensor.”