Giromin Residency Report: Creative Exploration by Musicians and Dancers from Frevo and Afro-Brazilian traditions

João Tragtenberg, Filipe Calegario, and Eva Rolim Miranda

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper reports on an artistic residency in a Recife, Brazil, in which musicians and dancers rooted in frevo and Afro-Brazilian traditions explored the Giromin, a wearable Digital Dance and Music Instrument (DDMI). Rather than focusing on technical development, the study documents how artists outside the NIME academic community negotiated the instrument through embodied practice, cultural vocabulary, and collective experimentation. Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis of six in-depth interviews, we identified six themes: (1) the body as interface, (2) tension between programming and creation, (3) tradition as resource rather than barrier, (4) simplicity as a strategy for instrumental mastery, (5) technical limitations as experience shapers, and (6) adoption and future imaginaries. The findings contribute to discussions on NIME adoption, embodied interaction, and community-centered design, particularly in Global South contexts. The residency reveals that digital instruments do not enter traditions as neutral tools; they are negotiated through existing bodily grammars, social practices, and expectations of liveness.

Citation

João Tragtenberg, Filipe Calegario, and Eva Rolim Miranda. 2026. Giromin Residency Report: Creative Exploration by Musicians and Dancers from Frevo and Afro-Brazilian traditions. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784182 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry


@inproceedings{nime2026_56,
abstract = {This paper reports on an artistic residency in a Recife, Brazil, in which musicians and dancers rooted in frevo and Afro-Brazilian traditions explored the Giromin, a wearable Digital Dance and Music Instrument (DDMI). Rather than focusing on technical development, the study documents how artists outside the NIME academic community negotiated the instrument through embodied practice, cultural vocabulary, and collective experimentation. Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis of six in-depth interviews, we identified six themes: (1) the body as interface, (2) tension between programming and creation, (3) tradition as resource rather than barrier, (4) simplicity as a strategy for instrumental mastery, (5) technical limitations as experience shapers, and (6) adoption and future imaginaries. The findings contribute to discussions on NIME adoption, embodied interaction, and community-centered design, particularly in Global South contexts. The residency reveals that digital instruments do not enter traditions as neutral tools; they are negotiated through existing bodily grammars, social practices, and expectations of liveness.},
address = {London, United Kingdom},
articleno = {56},
author = {João Tragtenberg and Filipe Calegario and Eva Rolim Miranda},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784182},
editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
issn = {2220-4806},
month = {June},
numpages = {11},
pages = {474--484},
title = {Giromin Residency Report: Creative Exploration by Musicians and Dancers from Frevo and Afro-Brazilian traditions},
track = {Paper},
url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_56.pdf},
year = {2026}
}