How do you express the sounds of an early analogue synthesizer via the medium of interpretive dance? Turns out we got the answer way back in 1971, when the so-called ‘Moog Dancers’ appeared on the UK’s ATV network.
For anyone who believes that the early ‘70s wasn’t a particularly progressive time, this is well worth a watch. The dance aired three years after the release of Switched-On Bach, the Wendy Carlos album that’s widely credited with helping to bring the sound of synthesizers into the mainstream and sparked a surge of interest in their capabilities, and is sonically and visually experimental to say the least.
As the poster, Are Sounds Electrik, reminds us, the clip takes us back to a time “when dancing to a modulating Moog Synthesizer was considered new, fresh and avant-garde.”
We also wonder if the performance might have had a lasting legacy - check out Michel Gondry’s video for Daft Punk’s Around The World (released in 1997) below and decide for yourself whether it could have been an influence…
(Via Boing Boing)
