It’s taken me a while to get to write about this experience. I wanted to be clear-minded and honest about the experience as a whole, as I have been so far in my previous reviews and I felt that for a while my judgement was being clouded by other aspects of the performance. But now, let’s just for the moment get into the meat and bones of this experience as a piece of performance art. First things first, this wasn’t Dance… – Completely my mistake, I mis-read “live body and hand movements” as Dance. But to the credit of the artist, there was ‘choreographed movement’ contained within the piece.

This performance took place in a venue called “The Pit” which was found two floors below the basement of The Barbican. I’ve always wanted to but never visited the Barbican estate before. It is certainly a unique place within London. I’d like to return with more time and more.. daylight to see it in more detail, perhaps attend one of the many tours they seem to run. After some time I found the venue itself and the performance space is small. Smaller than Unity small. 150 seats arranged in a raked layout is how it was arranged for this performance. There is a limited amount of space for any ariel work to take place with the ceiling being just 4.5 metres tall.

The seating for this performance was unassigned seating, so first come first served and it seems that (for once) I had arrived quite early so I was perhaps 10th or 11th in the queue to get in to the house itself. I managed to grab myself a front row seat which was on the actual performance floor. There is no stage as such, just the floor itself. There was about 3 – 4 metres of space between the seating and the edge of the set of what is called B.A.B.Y. – This is what the performer calls the set that she has designed and built. (Bionic Assistant for Becoming Yourself)…  Pictures work better so…

This impressive set is a reactive light-art installation which is controlled through to use of Ableton Live using a motion capture suit with 17 different sensors placed around her body and through the use of motion capture gloves. Chagall controls the lighting and sound with the movements of her body as well as sings live too. Early on, after the first songs she performs, she introduces herself and talks to the audience, showing off how she is controlling what she is with the motion capture suit, sensors and gloves. She does this in an interactive way, I believe in an effort to convince the audience that it is really happening the way it is described. – I will admit that after this first song.. I was more confused than I was anything else. I could see that her movements were controlling ‘aspects’ of the set behind her. I don’t think her explanation / showing of what she controls with the gloves or suit really did a fantastic job of convincing me that it was all being played live. Later on she talked more about the software being used which is Ableton Live. So in my head (and forgive me Chagall if I am completely wrong, I really would like to have known more about how, what and when etc), but what it seemed like to me was that the basics of the lighting show for each of the tracks was pre-programmed to the music and there was some live control going on, from sensors or the gloves I don’t know. Her moving lights dotted around the bottom and the top of the set seemed to respond more to the movements of her gloves than anything else. She was also claiming to be ‘playing’ the music via the suit too… I am thinking that this means playing the movements that are programmed to trigger the music to play.. I am.. unsure as to how much of these aspects were truly live and how much was playback. I think perhaps the unsure aspect of things added to a little more of the magical feeling the performance gave.

I have to say that as performances go, this one was a lot more relaxed than a typical ‘show’. Photography and filming was allowed, or certainly wasn’t stopped or interrupted, but I am sorry, I just don’t / won’t do that. I am there to experience the performance as a member of the audience. My eyes are my lens and my memories are my media. So to the performance.. What was it? Well Chagall is a self-confessed ‘Artist, Performer, Computer Nerd’. She sung nine songs in total and a demo of a tenth while making use of B.A.B.Y. and combining the live singing with the light & sound triggering as well as audio playback. Chagall is a producer of electronic music, but rather than standing mostly statically behind a set of decks on stage, she wanted to have more of an interaction with the audience and so has become an early adopter of sensor-enabled gloves (MiMU), a full-body motion capture suit (Xsens) and specialised software (Ableton & more) to create the light-show live. Her website states ‘not-pre-recorded’, but what that is referencing exactly, I am not entirely sure.

All I can say is that I ‘think’ the basics of each track’s light show is pre-programmed, and in to that is mixed elements were the sensors on the suit and gloves interact with the technology and produce additional lighting movements and changes. She’s singing live and somehow the music is played back.. How exactly, I don’t understand. What makes the think this is that there were times were there was no movement from the performer and yet there was movement from the lights. Sometimes B.A.B.Y. did it’s own thing – which I get, it’s technology and it’s live, it’s not going to be 100% working all of the time. There was a point where it seemed to stop reacting at all.. Was that real? I don’t know.. but I see no reason for it to have been faked.. It didn’t add anything to the show as a whole.

The music was good, I enjoyed that and I think I will look at purchasing her crowdfunded album which was released the day before the performance I saw, and I will endeavour to find out more about Chagall as an artist online. I will keep an eye out for any forthcoming performances as she continues to push the envelope in the use of tech within the performance of live music. Overall, I liked the show. Afterwards there was a quick question and answer session where a host from the Barbican who seemed quite disinterested in the whole thing, asked some questions then offered up the floor to some questions from audience members.. which can be a double edged sword… But I think some good questions were asked. There is never enough time in the Q&A’s but the fact that the performers do them at all is a good thing. I get the feeling she would have stayed and talked for longer had it not been for the host. A good experience for sure and a great venue too. Well worth the trip.

At the very end, which was also the end of her run of shows at the Barbican, she took a selfie with the audience.. I  can’t find it actually online anywhere as yet, but here’s a screengrab from an instagram story / reel thing. Front row was a good choice for once, I am actually smiling!

I’ve not seen any reviews of this so far online, doesn’t seem to have been featured on any of the usual review sites, so if I have any of the aspects of this show wrong in a technical way, I am more than happy to be corrected and will make corrections here as appropriate. These thoughts and words and feelings regarding this experience are mine and mine alone. Thank you Chagall for sharing your passion and performance with us.