There is a visual element that incorporates puppets and mechanical/kinetic art installations. These should react to the music in some way. Ideally they actually produce some aspect of the music, like a big robotic contraption that bangs a drum, or are otherwise obviously related to the music: a robot jumps in the air every time a note plays in a particular melody.
The show is mostly put on by one person (me), generally as a background character. There should be room to incorporate guests.
There is a light narrative or emotional progression to the show. It should feel like something has resolved by the end.
Each show should probably be around an hour long.
Practically, I'm picturing it like this:
All the sound comes from an (unseen) computer.
There are multiple speakers connected to the computer with each one generally dedicated to one voice/instrument/part. This likely only works in a smaller venue where greater amplification isn't required. Imagine a space where a guitarist's amplifier doesn't also need to be mic'ed, and everyone can just hear the guitar part from the area of the stage where the guitarist is playing.
The speakers should be largely camouflaged by some kind of interesting object. That object should have a lot of interactive things on it—levers, buttons, sliders. These are all controllers that send MIDI signals to the computer and are predefined to do specific things.
For simplicity, there probably aren't any acoustic instruments involved. There might be a stick that looks like it's hitting a big drum, but the drum should just be a button that's triggering a sound on the computer and playing it back through the speaker near the drum. Not having to think about the physical characteristics of a sound allows for more experimental input and visuals, I think.
The interactions should be big and broad, more like hitting a gong and less like clicking a mouse. The musical things they control should be pretty discrete: an audience member paying close attention should be able to guess what's about to happen sonically if the performer grabs a big dangling rope and pulls on it.
Ideally the speaker/controller units can also be rolled around the stage, to create different visual compositions in addition to changing the quality of the sound: moving a unit left or right to physically pan its sound; moving it upstage or downstage to change its volume; maybe turning it around to muffle it or pointing it at a metal sheet to produce natural plate reverb?
If a sound is looping, that looping should be visualized in some way: a stick spinning around and hitting a drum in a regular pattern, maybe. Looping will probably be necessary with one performer on stage, and there should almost always be more than one thing happening on stage for the audience to focus on.
Blinking lights probably play a big part in this, but I want to avoid using screens or projecting video.
The music will probably be beat-driven but I want this to feel more like a concert than a rave.
Here are some sources of inspiration and points of reference:
Chuck E. Cheese - live animatronic stage show
Cirque du Soleil - interesting settings and costumes, lots of business going on around the main acts all the time
Blue Man Group - musical performance with an inherent novel visual interest (i.e. playing big weird instruments)
Freak Nature Puppets - big DIY creations, sometimes in service of a musical performance
Bunraku - plays with the appearance/disappearance of an on-stage handler
Shadow puppets, especially on overheard projectors—easy for the audience to understand the relationship between the art and the performer, small gestures can create big changes
Fantasia (1940) - novel visual interpretations of music. What's the live stage version of this film?
This Nine Inch Nails performance that starts with a huge step sequencer on the back wall of the stage. Manipulating sound with big physical gestures that can be understood by the audience.
Other interesting sequencers include this idea of using a turntable as a physical pattern for triggering sounds. This could also look interesting on stage, maybe presented like a mobile?
Here are some questions I'm asking myself:
What's missing to make this idea interesting for an audience for its full duration? Eventually I want this to be amazing, but I think the first version just needs to be enjoyable so I can perform it a few times and see what works.
How do I make this more than just a music performance with some tacked-on visuals? I don't want it to feel like a generic visualizer.
That's about as far as I've gotten so far. I am open to any and all feedback or suggestions! Email me if you have ideas, additional examples of prior art in this space, or just want to tell me you think this is cool.