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Harmonious Equations

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Harmonious Equations

Asilomar, December 7, 2008

karl saki breeze euler's equation“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.”

Bertrand Russell,
English mathematician and philosopher in his book
Mysticism and Logic (1918)

zambra karl saki breeze eulers equation

saki karl pythagora's theoremSafe and warm under the blanket of MoveSpeakSpin, Karl Schaffer, Saki and Breeze collaborated this weekend with a group of highly skilled professionals.  Harmonious Equasions was peformed/presented at Asilomar where a large group of educators from all over Northern California... and beyond enjoyed a weekend full of mathematically stimulating activities.

The show was about one hour long and featured the mathematical genious of Keith Devling, the amazing musical tallents of Zambra (female vocal group), and the visual and rhythmic movements of MoveSpeakSpin.

Each of the 7 dance pieces had the following format:

karl saki breeze leibniz equation
karl saki breeze euler's equation

Keith elequently presents a mathematical equasion, principle or formula

Zambra sings their interpretation of the said mathematical concept

Zambra explains their creative process

Zambra sings again, this time accompanied by MoveSpeakSpin

 karl saki breeze newton's equation
breeze saki karl einstein equation

    Zambra karl saki breeze euler's equation
    These were the pieces presented:
    Euler’s identity eiπ=-1
    Pythagoras’ theorem 3, 4, 5 right triangle
    Area of a circle Area=πr2
    Einstein’s energy equation E=mc2
    Leibniz’s series for π Leibniz's series for pi
    Newton’s second law of motion Force = mass x acceleration
    Euler’s polyhedron formula For any convex polyhedron,
    V – E + F = 2
    where V  is the number of vertices, E  the number of edges, and F the number of faces

    Besides the "dance" pieces abovementioned, we also had the amazing Jonathan Middleton, who brough to the show two beautiful compositions using "the most unlikely of instruments": cell phones.  The first piece was Jonathan's interpretation of Euler’s circle identity while the second was entitled "ORBITS."  The latter was made up entirley of performers moving about the audience space with cell phones that were programmed to play harmonious digital sounds triggered by movement and tilting of the cell phones.
    harmonious equasions cast