Yuanyuan He, "Birth" from Stellarscape

Performed by Yuanyuan (Kay) He, Hayley Meier, Devin Bayly
11/12/2022
Myers Studio, Connecticut College

StellarScape is a live and immersive multimedia project synthesizing music, science, visual art,and technology. The performance and installations include live musicians, electronic music, and dance, collaborating with interactive cinematography - fusing kinesthetic and acoustic sensing with cosmic simulation, in real time. This convergence research collaboration is catalyzed by the union of concepts at the confluence of astronomy, humanity, artistic expression through music and dance, and socio-technical experience.

StellarScape is the story of a massive star, from birth to death, echoing a primordial theme of darkness and light. Stars are born within the murk of molecular clouds. In a chaos of swirling gas and dust, gravity causes regions to collapse. Stars burst into life as fusion starts, then forge elements in their nuclear furnace cores. Star birth and death is a driver of biology in the universe, so is intimately linked to our existence. We are stardust brought to life.

StellarScape is the story of us. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. In the performance, two parallel storylines are developed: astronomical contexts and human poetic narratives. StellarScape is a collaboration at the University of Arizona between the Fred Fox School of Music, the Department of Astronomy, School of Dance, School of Information, and the UArizona Research Technologies Department. This convergence collaboration is catalyzed by a powerful union of concepts at the confluence of astronomy, humanity, and socio-technical experience advanced by Professors Yuanyuan (Kay) He (PI, Music), Chris Impey (Co-I, Astronomy) and Winslow Burleson (Co-I, School of Information), in collaboration with UArizona’s Devin Bayly (UA Research Technologies Department) , Gustavo Almeida (Closed Loop Sensor Lab, HS/Bio5), and Hayley Meier (School of Dance), and with internationally renowned guest visual artist Georgios Cherouvim (ch3 studio, Greece). Birth is the first movement of StellarScape. A star is born within the clouds of dust and gas spinning and collapsing under gravitational attractions. In parallel, an embryo develops into a fetus during the pregnancy progress and finally becomes a newborn at birth.

Hayley Meier received her early training from the Draper Center for Dance Education in upstate New York under Timothy M. Draper. She then went on to earn a BFA in Dance at the University of Arizona on a full scholarship where she had the opportunity to perform in many renowned works including the lead in George Balanchine’s, Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux and Serenade, and Ben Stevenson’s pas de deux, End of Time. During her time here, she was awarded the inaugural Hayley Meier Award for outstanding artistry across all dance forms, currently known as the Triple Threat Award.

From 2017-2018, Hayley became the Artist in Residence at the University of Arizona where she taught and performed for the School of Dance under the direction of Jory Hancock. She completed her Master of Fine Arts in Dance at the University in May 2020. During her time as a graduate student, Hayley was awarded the Creative Achievement Award in the College of Fine Arts, representing the School of Dance for demonstrating exceptional creativity and innovation with a passion for the arts. She is on faculty with the University as a full-time Assistant Professor of Practice and Undergraduate Advisor in the School of Dance.

Dr. Yuanyuan (Kay) He is a composer and multimedia artist with roots in China. Her research focuses using innovative technologies to blur the boundaries between different fields and combine different art forms. Her works often explore and intertwine various forms of media to create unique audiovisual experiences that engage the audience. Many of her works involve collaborations with musicians, choreographers and dancers, scientists, engineers, photographers, visual artists, and stage design artists. Her immersive multimedia project StellarScape is a convergence research collaboration synthesizing science, humanity, music, visual art, and technology. As a composer, she is very active in the music community. Kay serves as the Creative Director for Electronic Music Midwest (EMM), which is an annual music festival dedicated to programming a wide variety of electroacoustic music and providing high quality electronic media performances. She is also the founder and director of the TURN UP Multimedia Festival, which works to promote Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Culture-Connecting, and Equality. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, where she teaches composition, electro-acoustic music, multimedia, and orchestration. Kay earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and her Master of Music degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin.

Devin Bayly is a data and visualization consultant with the University of Arizona’s Research Technologies department. He was able to help StellarScape harness live interactive inputs fo rvisual effects using web technology, realtime motion graphics programs, super computing, and an array of sensors. StellarScape is a perfect example of the work he aims to do in the UArizona community using visualization to bring data to life.