Dance=Music Series is an ongoing series of the live improvisational performances featuring interactions between contemporary dance and music. These bi-monthly performances are created by composer Ng Chor Guan – the constant music feature in the series – who invites dancers to one or two sessions of improvisations at the Toccata Studio lab in SS2, Petaling Jaya. Dance=Music Series has under its belt, eleven differing installments of dance and music genres, ranging from hip hop to butoh and conventional to avant-garde music.

Producer Tan E-Jan considers the series an exploration of the connection between music and dance; composer and dancer. Music is naturally integral to dance, its rhythms and melodies are that which inform a dancer’s movements; yet music is commonly considered complementary, an accompanying element in the background. Dance=Music Series brings music into the foreground, and ventures further into unknown territory where dance changes music from a moving force into a force, moving. The improvisational nature of these performances allows freedom from stifling conventions and the crippling fear of erring. Yet it does not take away the grounding elements that make performance compelling; improvisation is built upon the unshakeable foundation of years of study and practice.

Dance and music are non-verbal languages of expression and communication; it is the belief of both producer and creator of Dance=Music Series that art is inherently inspiring and world-changing. Dance=Music Series is a manifest of that belief; creator Ng Chor Guan wishes to present to students, art practitioners and the general public the wonders of interaction and serendipity in improvisational art.