#Me Too

This is a collaborative set of works by Donna Hewitt & Mary Mainsbridge. The works are inspired by the 2018 ‘#Me Too’ campaign and the events that unfolded around the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The work of both artists explores gestural movement and voice, with each performer using a different system and approach to their exploration of gesture. Hewitt works with her eMic and wearable controller that detects arm and hand movements, while Mainsbridge has designed a system that detects whole body motion via the Kinect. These artists decided to embark on a collaboration looking for ways to bring their systems, gestures and voices together to compose and perform a new work. The work explores themes of power, influence, physical gesture and empowerment. Piece 1: Gravity (Mainsbridge & Hewitt); Piece 2: Shame (Hewitt & Mainsbridge); Piece 3: Black (Hewitt). The work presents a novel performance-based exploration of contemporary feminist and cultural themes relating to the abuse of power in the entertainment industry. The collaboration highlights the under-representation of females in traditionally technical roles, exposing the connections between vocal, movement and technological agency in live electronic music. The key research question informing the research is: How might movement choreographies, lyrics and sounds build new understandings of female physicality and empowerment? The musical composition unites the evolving practices of two female artists performing with self-designed movement-based systems for extending the biological constraints and movement vocabularies of vocal performance, providing unique repertoire in this exploratory and emerging field.