60 Giant Steps
Creative direction & illustration for live music.
Sydney Opera House commissioned a bespoke live-streamed performance celebrating the 60th anniversary of John Coltrane’s revolutionary composition 'Giant Steps', with music by GODTET and visuals by myself and animator Swicked.
In 'Giant Steps' Coltrane's radical experimentation with the Circle of Fifths music theory operates in a brilliant, strange space between groundbreaking, experimental mathematics and creative expression and improvisation.
Imagery for the performance plays with this same relationship, between mathematics — which is concrete, logical and foundational — and more impulsive, lateral creative expression and improvisation. We're deploying this really fascinating imagery and motion found in geometry, orbital mechanics, quantum physics, interference patterns, the physics of sound, you name it, but pulling it into more abstract, expressive territory.
Credits
Music GODTET
Guitar Godriguez
Keys Andrew Bruce
Percussion Dominic Kirk
Percussion Jan Bangma
Drums Jack Prest
Curation & Creative Production Alister Hill
Creative Direction & Art Direction Chris Cooper & Swicked
Illustration Chris Cooper
Animation Swicked
Production Assistance Josh Milch
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60 Giant Steps Performance
Sydney Opera House
GODTET
Swicked