Musiqa and NobleMotion Dance Will Bring FREE REIN to the MATCH

Musiqa and NobleMotion Dance, known for their innovative collaborations, will present Free Rein—a fusion of music, dance, multimedia design, and cutting-edge neuro-engineering—January 23–25, 2026, at the MATCH. The evening features music by Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Badie Khaleghian, and Max Vinetz; choreography by Andy and Dionne Noble; and neuroscience research by the University of Georgia's Creativity and Imagination Lab, directed by Anna Abraham, and the University of Houston's Nordin Lab, directed by Andrew Nordin.

What happens inside the mind of an artist at the moment of creation? How does inspiration move between music, dance, visual art, and audience—live and in real time? With Free Rein, Musiqa and NobleMotion Dance invite Houstonians to witness creativity as it unfolds, making the invisible process of artistic invention observable, audible, and deeply human.

Building on the acclaimed Meeting of Minds collaboration—which earned Chamber Music America's 2025 Interdisciplinary Collaboration of the Year Award—the companies reunite to blur the boundaries between art and science. In the titular work, musicians and dancers shift between rehearsed and spontaneous performance, showcasing both individual and collective creativity. Each segment reveals a different facet of artistic inspiration, while scientists capture and project neural data for the audience to experience in real time. Embedded scientific research using mobile brain–body imaging and cutting-edge AI displays performers' levels of creativity as the work unfolds. “Free Rein is the first time original music and dance have been created to study the creative brain in a live performance. We invite Houston audiences to be among the first to see inside the mind of a performer as they improvise," states Anthony Brandt. 

Choreographer Andy Noble explains, "We've crafted choreographic prompts that push the dancers' cognitive capacities. How they navigate these game-like structures is never predictable, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.”