Terpsichore for Kansas City

Terpsichore for Kansas City transforms the parking ga­rage of the new Kauffman Center for the Perform­ing Arts into into a public art musical instrument with light and sound, a complementary venue to the performances at the Center. Our artwork extends throughout the entire space of this thousand car, four-story garage, which serves Kansas City’s Arts District.

In Greek mythology Terpsichore was the Muse of Dance and the Chorus. The central feature of our Terpsichore is The Light Organ, a vertical sculpture of of light tubes, penetrating through the 4-story stairwell of the garage. Programmable LED’s within the Light Organ pipes produce white and blue light to create compositional pat­terns in different rhythms and intensities. These patterns were composed like another instrument playing with the sound composi­tions in the stairwell.

Sound from 108 speakers, activated by mo­tion sensors, plays moving through the garage for people to experience as they walk through space, making it seem like the garage itself is making the music. Composers David Moulton, Roberta Vacca, and Kansas City’s own Bobby Wat­son were commissioned to create the sound works for this project. The sound design for the Garage was developed in collaboration with composer David Moulton. Matt Harter is the system programmer. We hope to establish a program with the city and the Kaufman Center to commission composers to contribute pieces in the future and build up a library of compositions for the garage.