Composition · Live Electronics · Voice Improvisation · Sound Design
Dutch National Opera & Ballet Amsterdam · 2025
Explore the Work
Glitch in the Matrix is a live dance work created with choreographer Zoë Greten for Dutch National Opera & Ballet. Composition, modular synthesis, voice and movement unfold within the same performance space, allowing sound to function as an active presence rather than a fixed accompaniment.
Performed live on stage, the music moves between acoustic clarity, disruption and electronic transformation. Choreography and sound were developed in close dialogue, each continuously shaping the timing, tension and direction of the other.
Performance Arc
01
Order
Acoustic gestures and controlled movement establish a world that appears precise, stable and familiar.
02
Glitch
A disturbance enters the system. Rhythm fractures, voices distort and movement begins to resist its original form.
03
Transformation
Modular synthesis, vocal improvisation and choreography merge into an unstable dialogue in which no single element remains in control.
04
Return
The surface of order gradually returns, but the performers—and the world they inhabit—are no longer entirely unchanged.
For this work, the act of composing became part of the choreography itself.
Rather than remaining outside the stage picture, I performed alongside the dancers with voice, modular synthesis and live electronics. The audience could witness sound being generated, shaped and transformed in real time.
This visible presence was not an added theatrical device. The music occupied the stage as another body—responding to movement, creating tension and altering the atmosphere from within the performance.
Performance
Watch the work unfold
Excerpts from the live performance at Boekman Studio, Dutch National Opera & Ballet.
Every electronic and vocal gesture was performed live.
The score required close synchronisation with the dancers rather than reliance on fixed playback. Through the rehearsal process, I learned the choreography in detail—its timing, pauses, physical accents and transitions—so that sound could anticipate movement as well as respond to it.
Modular synthesis, voice improvisation and Ableton Live formed a flexible performance system: precise enough to support choreographed movement, yet open enough to remain alive from one performance to the next.
Performance Gallery
Behind the Scenes
Fragments from rehearsals, conversations and the making of the work.
Credits
Watch the full performance
Full documentation of Glitch in the Matrix, recorded live at Boekman Studio.
Watch Full Performance ↗
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Lengleng
© 2026