APD Play and Sound - Park Day Music Video + Impromatopoeia

Theme: Play and Sound

Context:
After some amount of time working on my half-joke project “Park Day Music Video” I decided I wanted to come up with another response. Sound was an overwhelming theme as it was one of my personal favourite elements in the playful arts. Additionally, as a huge fan of dance I love the transcendent feeling of responding to music with your body. This week I also helped out with Yomeciband, a musical installation where music plays as passerbyers walk on colourful chalk drawings. I got the opportunity to play the synth and play some music as people interacted with the installation. What stood out to me was that I had to improvise and respond to generate a sort of theme song of their movements. Movement first, audio second. I wondered if I flipped this process if I could create something interesting. This week's response, Impromatopoeia, starts with the audio and then asks the player to improvise and respond. I hope to leverage the evocative nature of sound to connect people to imagined spaces in an improvised performance. “Listening brings together ourselves and our place as connected beings” (Uyen Nguyen, 2020).

Method:
I created a simple sound scape collecting various audio clips from YouTube. In this case, I opted for familiar sounds that’d be easier to respond to. I then played back the audio and improvised a  performance in response to the audio. Ideally, the person who creates the soundscape would not be the person performing but due to time constraints this was the method I used. Additionally, given further development time I’d envision this project to use an app to sample, record and arrange various audio clips to quickly create these soundscapes for friends.

Response:
I created a short video of a single round of Impromatopoeia showcasing how I was able to improvise and perform in response to audio. I also created a music video for Park Day x Games Night 2022 which is the most ambitious crossover event in MAGI history. This started as a half joke but production was very playful and fun.
Video Showcase: https://youtu.be/sU9EDjG3amw
Bonus Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4nF6T0dfVY

Reflection:
I spent a little bit too much time pretending that the Park Day Music Video was my real response that I didn’t leave myself any time to properly respond. I feel Impromatopoeia could have potential as a product that helps players quickly create soundscapes and then record and compare their friends' responses. I often cite improvisation and dance as my two main forms of play in life. I like the idea of creating something that affords people approachable structure to explore and recognise the transformative power of audio and play.
The name of this project is a portmanteau of improvisation and onomatopoeia but is also just meant to seem overly cumbersome and nonsensical to mirror the frantic silliness that comes with improvised performance. 
I would be interested to explore what kind of soundscapes produce the best responses. The soundscape in the showcase above is quite tightly packed with little wiggle room. What if a soundscape had more negative space or if the sounds were more abstract?