Andrew Mark Sauerwein

Ask, Seek, Knock is the musical outcome of a collaboration with choreographer Julia Myers, whose Senior dance project (at Belhaven University) explores how dancers and musicians use language differently to describe their creative processes and designs.  The music is scored for pairs of woodwinds and piano but realized electronically so that it is readily available for the dancers to rehearse and perform – and also because I took the liberty of occasionally exceeding the ranges of the physical instruments. We used an unusual collaborative process: 

1. I composed a weekly installment of 30-60 seconds of music and sent a recorded verbal description of my process to Julia, followed by an audio demo.  

2. Julia worked out choreography based on the verbal description and taught it to her ensemble of four dancers. 

3. Julia combined the choreography with the audio demo, recorded the dance-in-progress, and sent me a verbal description of her process along with the video recording. 

The music was completed in November 2024, after nine weeks.  Julia then refined the choreography in January and early February.  The finished project, entitled Who is the Leader?, was performed on February 28 and March 1 in BU's 2025 Senior Dance Concert.