concept | Design
Inspiration came for this instrument when I considered how dancers have a very intimate relationship with the music they perform to, similar to the one that a musician may have. However, they are never given true control over the music they perform. They never receive auditory feedback when they dance well, or when they dance poorly. Thus, they are perpetually stuck in the consumer role when interacting with music.
DanceDance Revolution is great! But it is a gamified version of dance performance and physical bodily response to music. It also limits your control on the music you can play, and the dance moves you can do. BDE Pads are separate from each other so you can vary the configuration. Each pad is also programmable to play samples or chords when stepped on. These pads can definitely be used for fun, but they can also be used in musical performance that is not tied to a screen, as DDR is. Non-dancers can use them as well to make a performance more engaging. You can even think of them as giant, blown-up Novation Launchpad buttons.
The pads read a circuit that is completed whenever the two pieces that make up each pad are stepped on. By manipulating this signal, it was possible to program LED light configuration based on user input, starting/stopping a song, and even changing the samples on the pad midway through a performance, as demonstrated in the demo below. These are just beginning of the possibilities that BDE Pads have.
Below is a demo of the instrument playing the song Say So by Doja Cat, choreographed and performed by Primlouise Duragos.