Published: 1 September, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

TAKE your dancing shoes along with you when you go to the fourth Kings Place Festival of 100 concerts taking place late next week.

Installed in the foyer area will the revolutionary Contact Dance Floor, which uses the human body to create music.

“The dance floor provides a unique and fascinating fusion of music and movement,” says Phil Venables, artistic director of Endymion Music Ensemble, who is responsible for the interactive installation.

“The touch-sensitive surface responds to your movements on the floor, creating music with sound samples made from amplified sounds of movement and music.

“With this amazing new musical ‘instrument’, dancers ‘perform’ a new piece every time they move, by ‘playing’ the floor with their body. Great fun for all ages.”

The interactive dance floor is made up of 16 USB/PlayStation dance-mats that provide an array of 128 touch-sensitive pads.

When touched, these pads respond by playing a variety of sounds ranging from synthesisers and recordings of the human voice to sound effects and short excerpts of music.

Outstanding Chinese dancer Lucia Che Ying Tong is giving special performances three times daily on Saturday and Sunday of the festival.

The four-day Kings Place festival over September 8/11 period has a fabulous line-up with free and family events, classical, jazz, folk and a cappella music.

Festival highlights include:
• Mozart with Puppets performed by Islington’s Little Angel Theatre and Aurora Orchestra against the backdrop of Mozart’s Magic Flute overture and other works. Suitable for everyone from two years to over 100.
• Great Moments in Jazz recreated by the Jazz Repertory Company, including Benny Goodman’s famous Carnegie Hall concert in 1938. Magic for unreconstructed trad/swing enthusiasts.
• Janacek’s chamber music played by pianist Ivana Gavric and Aurora Orchestra.
• Foot-stomping British folk music played by Essex virtuosos Mawkin, Tyneside’s Monster Ceilidh Band and all-female band, The Shee.
• Recitals played by pianists William Howard, Martino Tirimo and David Greilsammer; Russian cellist Dmitry Yablonsky accompanied by his mother, Oxana; and bewitching cellist/singer Ayanna Witter Johnson.
• Tots Workshops for two- to three-year-olds. All tickets are £4.50 online, other methods
£2 extra. Call 020 7520 1490 or visit www.kingsplace.co.uk