Dance and Technology: A Pas de Deux for Post-Humans

Author(s): Kent de Spain

Source: Dance Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Summer, 2000), pp. 2-17
Published by: Congress on Research in Dance
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1478270 .
Accessed: 18/04/2013 17:54
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Congress on Research in Dance is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Dance
Research Journal.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Dance and
Technology:
A Pas de Deux for Post-humans
Kent De
Spain
Introduction
Encounter #1 Hand-drawn
Spaces
I
step
around the corner and into a small
room,
pitch
black
except for
the dull
glow of
three
projection
screens;
the center one
flat
in
front of
me,
the other two
angling
out like
welcoming
arms
reaching
to the
edges of
the darkness. I
stay
back,
keeping
what
distance is allowed
me,
so I can take it all in. With little
fanfare,
a
figure
moves into view.
The
figure
is
clearly
a
representation of
a
human,
a
biped
whose movement
quality
is
instinctually recognizable, yet
it lacks all
of
the
features by
which we
categorize
and
contextualize in that instant
of perceiving
an "other."
(Check
the order
of your personal
list and see how
you
were
socialized-Gender?
Age?
Race?
Ability?)
Instead,
this
figure
is
formed,
or
perhaps
I should
say
indicated,
by
lines: a chest
cavity of swirling
blue;
a
kinked,
mustard-yellow appendage extending
out
from
what seem like
perpetually
hunched shoulders.
From even a
few feet away
I
feel
a bit detached
from
this "dancer"
Lacking
individuality
in the
way
I am used to
experiencing
it,
I don't
feel compelled
to attend to
its
dancing.
So I
step
closer
Here,
almost surrounded
by
the
screens,
my customary
fourth
wall
protection
is lost. As
if
on
stage,
I
finally join
this
dance,
beginning
to
feel
some
of
that
sense,
that
connection-my body
to
your body, your moving
to
my
mov-
ing-that
has
kept
me in this
field through many
lean
years.
Yet who am I
connecting
with?
More
figures begin
to
appear
and
disappear:
some retreat out
of sight;
some
seem to
step
off
into the darkness
only
to
emerge
on a
different
screen;
and some
eerily
advance at
me,
growing
into
looming giants just
moments
before fading
into darkness.
It's as
if they
are
attempting
to leave their screened-in
world,
but
disappointed
to
find
themselves no more than
projected pixels of light.
I
realize that there is
sound-footfall
and a
blaring synthesized something-or-other-but
I have blocked it out while
attempt-
ing
to
"feel"
these
digital
movers.
Only
when a
quiet
voice breaks in do I
really
take
notice. It's
Merce,
and it seems like he is
just offstage
somewhere,
his invisible
presence
directing
the
digital
action,
with a
"two, three,
four, five..."
In Hand-drawn
Spaces,
a 1998 collaboration between Merce
Cunningham,
Paul
Kaiser,
and
Shelley
Eshkar,
dance and the
emerging
medium of
digital
art come
together
to birth a new form
of...well,
that seems to be the
question...of
what? Hand-drawn
Spaces
is a
beautifully
executed
example
of the kind of
melding
of movement and
technology
that is
changing
the face of dance as we know it. While dance has
always
used the ultimate
technology-the
human
body-to
create
magic through
human
movement,
and
although aspects
of invented
technology (e.g., stage machinery, pointe
Kent De
Spain
has been a
choreographer, improviser,
and
multidisciplinary
artist for
over
twenty years.
He has
taught
and toured
throughout
the United
States,
including
performances
at Jacob's
Pillow,
Judson
Church,
and the North Carolina Dance
Festival;
he has been the
recipient
of several
awards, including
the Pew
Fellowship
in the Arts
and an Established
Choreographers Fellowship
from the
Pennsylvania
Council on the
Arts. He is
presently
a Research Fellow in Dance at Ohio State
University
where he is
directing
an
improvisational performance
ensemble. De
Spain
holds an Ed.D. from
Temple University.
He is
writing
and
editing
a book on issues
surrounding
dance
and
technology.
2 Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
shoes,
theatrical
lighting,
recorded or
amplified sound)
have been used to
produce
or
enhance various effects
during
the
performance
of dances for
decades,
even
centuries,
choreographers
are now
routinely exploring
and
incorporating
a slew of new technolo-
gies
which
only twenty years ago might
have sounded like science fiction. Recent
advances in
computing (particularly digital imaging,
MIDI
interfaces,
and the
Internet)
are
fundamentally changing
the
way many
dance artists
create,
present,
and document
their work.
Computers
have even become a tool with which
people
who have never
danced themselves can
organize
and
edit,
essentially choreograph, digital
movement-
based works. Envision a brave new world with
digital
dances that
choreograph
them-
selves,
"new" works
by
deceased
artists,
or
surgically-altered cyborgian super-dancers,
and
you
are more
likely picturing
next month rather than next decade. The
philosophi-
cal and aesthetic
challenges presented by
some of the work now
combining
dance with
new
technologies
can be so
profound
that
critics, scholars,
and even the artists them-
selves will be forced to redefine and reassess how
they
understand and
interpret
dance
in our culture.
For
many people
in the dance
mainstream,
these
changes may
come as a sur-
prise,
but for
years
now a handful of
choreographers
and
technologists (sometimes
these are one and the
same)
have been
twiddling
in
basements,
sitting
in front of
glow-
ing
screens,
and
dragging
unidentifiable
gear
into
out-of-the-way
studios.
Often,
their
vision of the
possible
connection between
dancing
and various
aspects
of
technology
has
required
them to
adopt, adapt, re-program,
or
re-think,
equipment
and software
clearly designed
for other
purposes.
Their initial
experiments
have often been crude
approximations
of desired
effects,
fraught
with
glitches
and
short-circuits,
but with each
new
generation
of
equipment,
the difficult interface between dance and
technology
has
become more and more seamless.
As is often the
case,
critical and
scholarly engagement
with these
changes
has
been
lagging
a
step
or two behind the
technological
and aesthetic advances.
Perhaps
writers have
understandably
been
waiting
for the
quality
of the
experimentation
to
achieve
professional production
standards,
or to observe the
place
these new works
would assume within the culture of dance. But interest is now
peaking. During
the
past
year,
the
cutting edge
of dance and
technology
has
leapt
into
public
awareness
thanks,
in
large part,
to three
high-profile
collaborations initiated
by
Paul Kaiser and
Shelley
Eshkar,
who
together
form the Manhattan-based Riverbed Studios. In addition to Hand-
drawn
Spaces,
described
above,
they
have also
recently completed Biped, again
with
Merce
Cunningham,
and
Ghostcatching
with Bill T. Jones
(1). By combining
the latest/
greatest computing technology (motion-capture, figure
animation,
and much
more)
with
major choreographers already experienced
at
incorporating technology
into their
works,
these three
pieces
have attracted attention both within and
beyond
the dance
world,
and
have been
previewed,
reviewed,
and discussed
extensively
in both
print
and electronic
media. That media
exposure, though,
has focused
primarily
on what
they
did and how
they
did
it,
ignoring
the broader critical issues
concerning
what this kind of work means
within an aesthetic and sociocultural context.
As both a
practitioner
and a theorist
working
the
dance/technology
interface,
I
have been
very
interested in
identifying opportunities
and
strategies
for
furthering
dialogue among
artists, theorists, critics,
and historians
concerning
the use of new
technologies
in dance
(2).
This article will examine the three Riverbed collaborations
mentioned above in an
attempt
to articulate both the
technology
and its critical
implica-
tions. Consistent with
my
research
aesthetic,
I have
engaged myself experientially
with
the
pieces
and
conversationally
with the
artists,
hoping through
that
process
to
develop
a
deeper reading
of the issues. What
follows,
due to limitations of both
space
and mind,
does not cover all of the issues that need to be raised but
simply
offers a set of
leading
questions
which looks to the field for answers.
Dance Research Journal 32/1 (Summer 2000)
3
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Plate 1. From the world
premiere
of
Biped,
Merce
Cllnningham Dance
Company, Berkeley,
California.
(Copyright Stephanie Berger.)
What Is It?
Before
any questions
can be
asked,
it seems
necessary
to
explain just
what
technology
is
being
used and how it is
being applied
to the creation and
presentation
of new
"dance" works. In the case of the collaborators under
scrutiny
here, Kaiser and Eshkar
have not come to these
projects
from
backgrounds
in dance.
Instead,
they might
best be
considered
experts
in motion-based
computer graphics, coming
to
computers through
film
(Kaiser)
and visual arts
(Eshkar). They
excel at
creating
virtual 3-D
spaces
within
which animated
figures
and/or the viewer's disembodied
point-of-view
are moved
(3).
Hand-drawn
Spaces,
the first of the three collaborations to be
completed,
was
created
through
the
following process:
Merce
Cunningham choreographed
a series of
seventy-one "phrases"
of movement and
taught
them to two of his dancers. Those
dancers were then taken into a
motion-capture
studio where sensors were
placed
at
key
points
on their bodies so
that,
while
they
moved,
a series of cameras connected to a
computer
could
digitally map
their
dancing (seen
as a series of
moving
dots on a
screen).
These dots were then translated onto semi-humanoid animated
figures (think
of
the
blocky
outline of a
human)
which could be
extensively manipulated by
the collabo-
rators
(e.g., facings,
order of
phrases,
transitions,
direction of
travel,
and whether the
virtual dancer's movements were to be visible-on screen-at a
given moment). So,
essentially,
the final version of the work was
choreographed
on the
computer.
That,
in
itself,
is not unusual.
Cunningham
has
spent
most of the
past
decade
choreographing
with the aid of the
Life
Forms
computer program.
The difference here is that there was
never
any
intention to
eventually
translate the finished
choreography
back onto live
4 Dance Research Journal 32/1 (Summer
2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
dancers. The final
"performers"
of this work are beautiful hand-drawn
figures
created
directly
on the
computer by Shelley
Eshkar.
Ghostcatching (a digital
work
projected
onto a
single screen)
and the
digital portion
of
Biped (with projections
on a
transparent
scrim
through
which the audience can also see live
dancers)
were created
through
essentially
the same methods.
So in what
ways
does work
arising
from these new
technologies challenge
our
existing understanding
of dance? Hand-drawn
Spaces
is an excellent
example
of what
has been called
by
some "virtual dance"
(4).
Virtual dances
may
or
may
not have ever
existed in "real" time and
space,
and the "dancers"
may
be
images
of
humans,
human-
like
figures,
or even non-human
shapes
and
objects. Computer-based
virtual dance
seems to be
expanding
on the aesthetic
ground mapped
out
by
its
technological
cousins,
video-dance and film-dance
(5). Structurally,
these forms all share the
ability
to
manipu-
late the viewer's
experience
of time and
space through film-style editing, layering
and/
or
sequencing any
kind of
image. They diverge
in that film and
video,
with some
important experimental exceptions,
have tended to use
camera-captured images
of
actual humans as their
primary dancing subjects,
while virtual dance seems more
willing
to
expand
the definition of
"dancer,"
taking advantage
of the
graphic design capabilities
of the
computer.
Another
interesting change
is that
computers
have
permitted
virtual
dance creators to
push beyond
the "cut" of
film-style editing.
In all three of their
pieces,
Kaiser and Eshkar used software-based
algorithmic processes
which allowed them to
have the
computer interpolate
the movements
necessary
for their
dancing figure
to
decide for itself how to maneuver
smoothly
from the end of one
sequence
to the
begin-
ning
of
another,
even if that involved a
significant
shift in both
shape
and
position.
The first and
perhaps
most fundamental
question regarding
virtual dance should
now be addressed: Is it dance? Paul Kaiser does not see his
pieces
as
dance,
preferring
to think of them as a new form
melding
dance and
drawing
and
filmmaking.
But the
Cunningham Company
website
trumpets
Hand-drawn
Spaces
as "the first dance for the
computer by
a
major choreographer"
where viewers can "enter a virtual hand-drawn
world in which abstract dancers
perform
a full and
completely
new
Cunningham
work."
After his
experience working
on
Ghostcatching,
Bill T. Jones addressed the
question
in
the
following way:
It's a
very provocative
issue,
because I was
thinking
I would
agree
with
the
people
who
say
that it's not
dance,
but we have to be careful that we
don't
get
left
behind,
or that we don't miss an
opportunity
to share what
we know about the human
body
and what we love about live
perfor-
mance,
share it with the
future;
and that we don't become so
protective
of this little domain that we have
which,
as we
know,
is undervalued and
underfunded,
that we don't have the
courage
to
step
out.
(6)
Can
we,
should
we,
based on our culture's
present understanding, accept
these
works as dance? If
so,
fine. If
not,
how will our new
understandings
be constructed in
the future as we encounter
more,
and more
extreme,
examples
of the form? Will we
eventually expand
our
conception
of dance until
any piece
in
any
medium
(or
combina-
tion of
media)
which involves the
exploration
of movement fits under a broad dance
umbrella? Or will some
aspect
of this
work,
or
perhaps
the lack of some
aspect,
eventu-
ally
determine that we
categorize
it as
something
else? Is it even
necessary
to make such
distinctions,
given
that dance
probably
extracts some of its cultural
staying power by
exploiting
the definitional
margins
of the
performance
world?
At times
during
the
past year
there has been a heated debate
concerning
this
very
issue
raging
on the Dance and
Technology
listserv
(an
e-mail
message
board
primarily
subscribed to
by
dance artists and techno-artists
working
in this
area) (7).
Perhaps
this indicates
that,
for the first time since the
heady days
of Judson Church and
the
Happenings,
we are
entering
an era where
artists, critics,
and scholars of dance will
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
5
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
be
penning
manifestos,
taking
sides,
and
observing
new work in a constant state of
ontological indeterminacy.
The
post-sixties
retrenchment in dance offered no such
challenge.
The minor scuffles over so-called "victim art" and other work based in the
personal
stories of the
socio-economically marginalized
were brief and
relatively
bloodless. Even the
potentially
fundamental
challenge
of a
shrinking
world
community
and the
accompanying exposure
to dances from dozens of other cultures has been so
effectively
framed
by
Keali'inohomoku and others as an "etic/emic" debate that we
readily accept very foreign
material with the
understanding
that to
"them,"
it is dance.
But virtual dance and other forms of
dance/technology, arising
from within our own
culture
and,
in the near future if not
already,
from a new kind of worldwide
cybercul-
ture,
might
force us to make new kinds of choices:
Must dance exist within what we
might
call "real"
space?
Well,
in
many ways
throughout history, performances
of dance have occurred in a
special space,
a
magical,
sociocultural
space
we
might
call the "dance
space,"
where
representation
and
"reality"
freely mingle
and transform. Will we extend the "dance
space"
into the
representative
spaces
of
computing?
Must dance involve humans? Are the dances of birds and bees
merely
meta-
phorical?
Can
imagined
creatures dance? Haven't
humans,
through
the transformative
power
of
dancing,
become both animals and
imagined
creatures,
gods
and tricksters and
spirits?
Real or
imagined,
must dances be danced
by
creatures,
or will we
accept
and
attempt
to
interpret
a
computer-based
dance of
shapes
and colors?
If
"humanity"
is
important,
how will we define what is human and what is not in
an era of
increasingly
extensive and invasive
biotechnology?
Will what is
imaginable
on
a
computer
become what is demanded on a
stage,
and will the dancers who
try
to fulfill
that vision be forced to resort to more and more medical assistance to
improve
or
repair
their overtaxed bodies? Or should we be
wary
that
motion-capture,
with its
potential
for
creating
a detailed
map
of individual movement
characteristics,
could be added to an
expanding
list of
technologies (retinal scans, MRIs,
DNA
mapping) taking
on
Foucauldian
implications
of social identification and
discipline (8)?
Should a
motion-captured
documentation of an
existing
live,
human dance
(later
viewed on
computer
as
performed by digital dancers)
also be considered a dance? If
so,
is it the same dance as the live version it is based
on,
or is it somehow different? As
historians and critics look at
technological
documents as the
only
accessible versions of
dances from distant times or
places,
how will
they identify
and
interpret
the nature of
that difference
(9)?
Why
not
simply
reach out
welcoming
arms to
encompass
all movement under
the
aegis
of dance?
Why
should the
technology
affect the
ontology
if movement is the
essence of the work? I have
personally argued
for what
might
be called a "medium-
based"
(as
opposed
to a
movement-based)
criteria for
parsing
the dance from the dance-
related,
because film and video and
graphical computers
have as much claim to
being
movement-based media as does dance
(10).
How do we
experience
and
interpret
the art
we are
exposed
to,
especially
when it crosses
disciplinary
boundaries? Whether in-
tended as documentation or as stand-alone
art,
when dance is
captured
on film or video
or
computer
it has an extra
layer
of mediation which adds
complexity
and shifts the
focus of our
experience.
The connection between the
moving
and the
representation
of
the
moving might
be
seamless,
but there also
might
be a schism in our somatic
experi-
ence of the
moving
based on the
manipulation
of the elements of the medium. What
choices were made?
Subject, angles, framing, editing,
etc.? And how are we
seeing
the
piece?
On a monitor?
Projected
onto a
giant
screen? At home on the couch with a
remote control in our hands?
Why
does it matter where and how we
experience
a
dance? To
recognize
a
piece
for whatever it
is,
in essence to "name" it, allows us to
engage
with it in
culturally
or
critically appropriate ways.
At the same
time,
it also
delimits our
experience
of
it, ensuring
that we will
probably
miss
aspects
of the work
which
might
be
important
to someone else. We want
to,
and
try
to,
be as
open
to new
6 Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Plate 2. From the world
premiere
of
Biped,
Merce Cunningham Dance
Company, Berkeley,
California.
(Copyright Stephanie Berger.)
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
7
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
work as we
can,
but to
imagine
that we could see it without in some
way "naming"
it is
to
deny
the
always, already
acculturated nature of our
perceptions.
Regardless
of how our culture's
conception
of dance in
technological
media is
eventually
constructed,
it is not
only
aesthetic but
pragmatic
(read:
institutional)
consid-
erations that will rest on the outcome of the debate. Within
higher
education,
where will
the
computers
be housed and who will teach students how to use them? Three of the
leading
dance and
technology programs
in the United States
(Ohio
State
University,
Arizona State
University,
and the
University
of
Wisconsin-Madison)
have settled on a
happy
medium,
having technology
resources and
expertise
within the
departments
themselves but also
having
close affiliations with
multidisciplinary technology programs
or centers
(11).
But
overcoming
structural
challenges
does not settle the
pressing
issues
facing
dance education in the
age
of
technology.
As with so
many
other fields in our
information-besotted
culture,
dance
departments
are
being severely challenged
in the
allocation of educational
capital. Technology
is
joining
a
growing
list of
"required"
knowledge
and skill
acquisitions
that
directly compete
for the limited time and
energy
resources of
faculty
and students in dance. For
many programs
there is
simply
no room
to maneuver within the credit hours allocated to a dance
major
without
cutting
crucial
courses
(Effort/Shape,
Dance
Kinesiology,
Dance in World
Cultures?).
Must the dancer/
choreographer
of the future become a
computer expert?
If
so,
will students become
more familiar with virtual bodies at the
expense
of
knowing
their own? If
not,
will
movers have to
rely
on others for the
expertise
it takes to create
quality
work with new
technologies?
Why
Use It?
For
many
dance artists the use of such
technology may
hold no
specific appeal.
After
weighing
issues of
expense,
a
steep learning
curve,
and a smaller human
presence
within some
portions
of the creative
process, choreographers might understandably opt
to
stay
with more traditional
approaches.
Yet Hand-drawn
Spaces
involved Merce
Cunningham, arguably
our most
important living choreographer.
What can someone
like
Cunningham,
with a
company
of
top professional
dancers at his
disposal, gain
from
exploring computer-based technologies?
He
quickly
dismissed one of the
possible
benefits:
With the
computer
one can make the
figure
do
things
the human
body
couldn't
do. That doesn't
basically
interest me because I'm
really
concerned about
people dancing.
When asked what is
important
to him about this
work,
he
replied:
I think the
possible
discoveries. At least that's
my personal feeling,
that's what I
use it for...It's the
possible way you
can see
something
in a
way you
haven't. It's
something you've
been
dealing
with all
your
life and
you
can see it in another
way.
And
you say,
"Oh,
we can
go
further;
we can
go
on." You
always
can,
but
what's
difficult, often,
is to find a
way,
or a clue as to how to do that...I think
[technology]
is
absolutely
a marvelous
way
to
open your eyes again. (12)
The idea of vision is fundamental to
Cunningham's understanding
of the link
between
dancing
and
imaging technologies.
He states:
My point
was from the
beginning
that I
thought
[this technology]
was
visual,
and I think dance is visual. So I
put
them
together.
What struck
me
immediately
was the fact that
you
could see the
figure...you
didn't
have to
go through symbols,
and
you
could see it in the same sense as a
teacher
showing you
a
step
or a
choreographer giving you
a
phrase.
It as
that direct to
my eye.
8 Dance Research Journal 32/1 (Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
But in
choreographing
with
computers, Cunningham
found more than
just
a
new
way
to see movement. He also noticed a kind of aleatoric assist inherent in the
process
of
working
with new and unfamiliar
technologies:
My experience, particularly
with
Life Forms,
was that I
kept coming up
with
things quite by
accident because I didn't know how to use the
apparatus.
And I
wondered if
they
would be
possible.
So I would
try
them out in class with
students,
and if one student
[got]
it,
then I knew it could be done
by
humans...So it added a
speed
to
my technique,
to
my company,
I
think,
and a
clarity
about
doing, say,
one
thing
with the
legs
and
something
else with the
arms;
[something]
which I had
gone
at in other
ways,
but
Life
Forms
opened up
other
possibilities.
Working
on Hand-drawn
Spaces
with Kaiser and Eshkar was another new
experience
for
Cunningham.
But while there was still an element of chance
(Cunningham
notes
that,
"Motion-capture
can
change
the movement in so
many
inter-
esting ways."),
it was much less hands-on:
First of
all,
I had no direct access to the
computer. Shelley
and Paul did
it,
naturally,
because the
computer
was so much more
complicated
and the
ap-
proach
was
entirely
different.
They always [asked], "well,
what is it that
you
want?" But what I wanted to know was what it could
do,
so I could utilize it in
different
ways.
What became clear in the course of
my
conversation with
Cunningham
was that
he values the
process
of
working
with new
technologies
even more than the works he
eventually
creates. When asked about that he
simply
said,
"Oh
yes.
I
mean,
we make
something
and we
put
it out there to be
seen,
but I'm
already thinking:
What's next?"
How
They
Dance
Encounter #2
Ghostcatching
A
figure,
down on all
fours, jerks
and lurches like an
angry dog.
Formed
by
lines and
impelled by
Bill T Jones's
improvisational moving,
he
(why
does it seem like a
he?)
looks like some
crazy
relative
of
the virtual dancers in Hand-drawn
Spaces, recently
escaped from
under lock and
key.
It seems
cramped
in his world as he moves
among
loose
swirling
strands
of
color,
and we
(our
camera-like
point of view)
are
close,
un-
comfortably
close,
and we seem to lurch with him to
stay just
out
of
his
way.
Jones's
resonant voice
half sings
and
half
tells a tale
hinting of
sexual
predation:
"Wait,
I want
you
to look here in the trunk. I have some cornbread in there
for you."
Am I to connect
these
beings,
the disembodied voice and the dancer
stripped
of
face
and
race,
carved
as
they
are
from
the wholeness which is Bill T. Jones? Do I read them as indicators
of
something
more
human,
or must I
simply
take them at
face(less)
value,
and not ask them
to be more than
they
are?
There is
something
in the
experience
of the
ghostly
virtual dancers in these
Kaiser/Eshkar
pieces
that strikes me as
alternately compelling
and
distasteful;
intriguing
and
troubling.
And for these disembodied
or,
perhaps
more
accurately
stated, alterna-
tively
embodied dancers to
produce
such an effect in me is a testament to the
power
of
their
dancing
and to the
accomplishments
of their creators.
Although
these works could
be
accurately
identified as dance
"animations,"
these virtual
beings
cannot be dismissed
as
exaggerated Disney-esque
caricatures of dancers.
They
don't
quite
communicate a
sense of
weight
or
momentum,
but there is
present
a level of movement
detail, frag-
ments of
quirky
and unintentional shifts and balances
caught by
the
motion-capture
system,
that lends them an eerie verisimilitude.
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
9
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Plate 3. A still from the virtual dance installation
Ghostcatching,
1999.
(Bill
T.
Jones,
Paul
Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar.)
In
Ghostcatching,
which Paul Kaiser describes as "a kind of meditation on the
possibilities
and limitations of
motion-capture,"
the dancer and the
technology
formed a
critical mass which
pushed
virtual
dancing
another
step
toward the kinesthetic. Motion-
capture
is
probably
the oldest of the
technologies
under
scrutiny
here,
but it is still
very
much a
work-in-progress.
A
late-nineteenth-century
French
inventor,
Etienne-Jules
Marey,
used reflective
tape
and serial
photography
to
map
the movements of
gymnasts
and others. The advent of
computers
and video cameras has
updated Marey's
method
but,
even with this new
equipment,
initial efforts were crude when measured
against
the
detail and flow of live
dancing.
There is no
question, though,
that
motion-capture,
as it
achieves its full
potential,
is
becoming
the tool that will allow
dancing
to enter the
digital
world with most of its movement
integrity
intact. And the
day
is not far off when
10 Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
detailed,
complex
solo and
group choreography
will be
accurately
documented,
allow-
ing
the movement to be viewed from
any angle-a
marked
improvement
on a one- or
two-camera video shoot. The
pragmatic
drawback? The
space
and the
technology
make
motion-capture staggeringly expensive.
The aesthetic drawback
(or
is it a
strength)?
We
can
finally separate
the dancer from the dance.
Primarily
used
commercially
as a source of movement for video
games, Holly-
wood
special
effects,
and for detailed
analysis
of
sports technique, motion-capture
was
not
ready
for the
specific problems presented by
dance when Kaiser and Eshkar asked
the
Cunningham
dancers,
and then Bill T.
Jones,
to be
"captured" (13). Early
facilities
had bare concrete
floors,
too few
sensors,
and sometimes bundles of cables which made
it
impossible
to move
freely (newer
facilities such as Motion
Uprising
in
Brooklyn,
New
York,
are better
equipped
and have become more
adept
at
working
with
dancers).
For
improvements
to be
made,
limitations must be
identified,
so Kaiser and Eshkar
specifi-
cally sought
out Bill T. Jones to
challenge
both the
motion-capture technology
and the
new
figure
animation software
they
were
testing
to
manipulate
the results.
Already
known for his
complex
and athletic movement
style,
Jones was also asked to
improvise
his movements for the
sessions,
maximizing unpredictability.
Jones describes his first
motion-capture experience
as follows:
The
space
was not
particularly
warm. The floor was hard.
They
hadn't
really
thought
out the limitations of the sensors on
my body...Sure enough,
once I
began
to sweat
[the sensors]
would
pop
off and then
everything
would
stop...And
I
said,
"I don't think
your technology
can
actually capture
what I
do." I ooze. I shudder. I undulate. I use
my fingers.
I use what I call micro-
isolations. It was thrown down as a bit of a
challenge
on
my part.
"Take that.
This is
beyond your technology."
It was a defensive stance.
But even after a difficult and
"very frustrating" experience,
Jones was
surprised by
what
was
gleaned
from the session:
When I saw the dots
swirling
around on the
computer
screen
later,
I was mes-
merized,
and I was
quite
moved.
Because,
though
there was no
"body"
there,
that was
my
movement. It was different than
video,
it was
disembodied,
but
there was
something
"true" in
it,
and I was
respectful,
more
respectful,
then.
Over the course of
eighteen
months and three different
capture
sessions with
Jones,
the
technology
and the facilities had
improved
so much that Kaiser and Eshkar
even went back and
replaced
sections of
Ghostcatching
after the first version had
premiered
at
Cooper
Union in New York. But no matter how much the
technology
improves,
no matter how detailed and accurate and kinesthetic the results of motion-
capture
become,
the fundamental critical issue remains the same:
motion-capture
is a
process
which extracts movement from its human context.
From Human to Post-human
Throughout
our
history,
dance has been
(arguably,
I'm
sure)
the most "human" of the
arts,
by
the
simple logic
that its medium of
expression
is the human
body
itself
(14).
Over the course of the
past century,
all of the arts saw an
unprecedented
acceleration in
the abstraction of the materials and content of artistic media
away
from their
origins
in
human culture and nature. Dance
(probably
seen as a bit backward because of
it)
has
been a site of resistance because of the
bodily
essence of the medium. No matter how
much one works to
choreograph
non-referential
movement,
it is
ineluctably
contexted
and referenced
through
the somatic
presence
of the
performer.
In contrast to the visual
arts,
it
might
even be
argued
that minimalist or serialist
experimentations
in movement
actually
accentuate the humanism of the
dancing.
Enter
technology.
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
11
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Since the invention of
imaging technologies
in the mid to late nineteenth cen-
tury,
it has
finally
become
possible
to,
in some
sense,
separate
the dance from the
body
of the dancer
(15).
We
probably
did not
recognize
it as such
initially.
With
photography,
then
film,
then
video,
we saw
images
of ourselves
performing shapes
and movements
we could
directly
correlate with the dances that had been documented. We failed to
notice the incremental
changes
that
technological special
effects were
having
on our
image (16).
But
now,
who we see in our mirrors doesn't resemble these
digital
dancers
we see on our monitors
(at
least not
yet),
and we must
begin
to
acknowledge
that we
might
have to
engage
with "dance" as a
phenomenon
distinct from the human
per-
former.
Why
did this
happen?
Do we
point
the
finger
at
technology?
Or
maybe
modem-
ism?
I think the roots
go
much
deeper.
The extraction of movement from its source in
human movers is
merely
the latest
step
in a march that
began
when humankind
scratched out the
very
first word.
Literacy.
The
magic
of
writing
was the
technology
that
first
separated
human communication from the
ephemerality
of embodied
linguistic
practice (17).
Humans had found a
way
to make communication last
beyond
the end of
a
spoken
sentence,
even
beyond
the end of a life. But the
price they
had to
pay
for this
power
was to
separate
the words from their
living
human context.
Anyone
who read the
words later would have to
supply
for themselves whatever was
lacking
in communica-
tive context:
gestures,
facial
expression,
tone of voice.
Interpretation
became less about
a real-time
negotiation
of
meaning
between a sender and a
receiver,
and much more of a
self-reflexive act.
Technology (the printing press,
the
typewriter,
the word
processor)
simply
accelerated a
process
that had
already developed
its own momentum.
In the
years
since the advent of
literacy,
we have become
proficient
as a culture
at
manipulating
and
interpreting complex
combinations of numbers or letters with
very
little contextual assistance. These are
symbol systems
that now have a
long history
of
separation
from
specific
human instantiation. But this
strategy
of
separating message
from
messenger
is
clearly
most effective for information that is the least context-
sensitive,
and has the most distinct and stable
meaning.
Does that work for movement?
Historically, meaning
in dance
might
be seen as
being
derived from the relation-
ship
between kinesthetic sensations and human situations
(or
situations in which hu-
mans are
representing,
or have been
possessed by,
other humans or
non-humans).
Symbol-based systems
for
documenting
dance movements have been
developed,
but
they
do not transmit kinesthetic
sensations,
nor do
they adequately convey,
in the act of
"reading,"
the
meanings
that existed in the embodied
performance (18).
Before recent
technologies,
the
conveyance
of
meaning
in dance has relied on mutual
physical pres-
ence
during
the
process
of
transmission,
whether in
performance
or in
teaching.
But
motion-capture
uses movement itself as the medium of
documenting
dance. Under the
best of
circumstances,
it can
produce
kinesthetic sensations. Does it also
convey
mean-
ing?
Can dance movement be removed from
specific
human
performers
and still retain
some of its
meaning?
Or
perhaps my wording
shows
my
humanistic bias.
Maybe
the
real
question
virtual dance raises is: Can movement have value and
meaning
that to us
beyond
the limitations of human dancers? How much of the
meaning
we derive from
dance comes from the
humans,
and how much
might
inhere within abstract
qualities
of
movement
(direction, shape, speed, complexity,
etc.)? Technology
is
going
to force us
to decide.
For
some, though,
such as Merce
Cunningham,
the whole issue of
humanity
and
meaning may
be a red
herring.
When asked if he had
any thoughts
about how viewers
should derive
meaning
from virtual
dancing, Cunningham replied:
No. But I think it's
something you
look at and
you
have to
figure
out a
way [to]
receive it. And I think the most
simple way
is to look direct, not think it's some-
thing
else than what
you
see...And then if
you
can make
something
else out of
that,
then that's all
right...One
could
say,
"Well,
they're
not human," or
"they're
12 Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
not this or
that,"
but I have no sense about that. I'm sure that when the
type-
writer came in
everybody
said it wasn't
human,
and then of course
you
use it
and it becomes human.
Biped
and the
Journey Beyond
the Human
Encounter #3
Biped
Five dancers move
forward from
the
darkness,
side-by-side
in
matching diagonal
lunges.
Their arms are
open, beyond
wide,
each
exposed
chest
offering passionate
proof
that movement wants no
story,
no
reference, just
a
willingness,
a
commitment,
to
full
and unbounded
presence. Wrapped
in Gavin
Bryars's
lush
drone,
the dancers
couple
and
part
and
shift
and withdraw. Two remain and strike
up
a conversation
of
limbs and bends as
strips of
material on the sides
of
their costumes
reflect
an eerie blue
bar
of projected light.
Another dancer, this one born
of
silicon,
not
flesh, appears
to be
standing
and
shifting upstage left,
an illusion
of perspective
that
evaporates quickly
as
it moves and
grows (four
times too
tall),
and then
fades from sight.
Far from
being
some kind of
antihumanist,
Paul Kaiser makes it clear both in
word
(see
the
accompanying interview)
and in deed
(note
the human-like
figures
and
the
performative style
of his
collaborations) that,
even
though
his
pieces
exist in a
digital
medium,
he is
very
attached to the movement of humans.
Motion-capture
tech-
nology
has been crucial to his desire to somehow use the
idiosyncratic
details in the
movements of dancers
(and,
in future
projects,
of untrained children and
pedestrians)
as
the
very signifiers
of their human identities in a world without obvious cultural markers
(19).
The
humanity
of the work exists not in the
figures,
but in the
re-presentation
of
movements
only
humans could create and realize.
By removing
the distraction of the
human
personality,
we
might
be able to focus more
clearly
on the
magic
of the move-
ment. But he and Eshkar are also
clearly willing
to
push
their
re-presentation
of those
identities to
very
abstract
ends,
and in their
projections
for
Cunningham's
new
piece
Biped, they
add a number of new
figures
to their
pick-up company
of virtual dancers.
While their
previous pieces
were
only
a few minutes in
length,
in
Biped
Kaiser
and Eshkar faced the
challenge
of
developing twenty-eight
minutes of
projections
that
would coexist with live dancers at various times within a
forty-five-minute
work. In
addition to the hand-drawn
figures
familiar from their other
pieces, they
chose to
include a number of movers based on the sensor dots of the
motion-capture process
(remember
that the
computer initially
sees the sensors as
moving
dots,
ignoring
the
human
they
are attached
to).
These
dot-figures,
seen from a
variety
of
angles,
seem like
a new kind of humanoid
skeleton,
an electronic
glyph indicating
bodiless
points
of
articulation. When
projected
as if seen from
directly
overhead,
locomoting figures
appear
more like arachnids than
humans;
the sensors on their heads become
tiny,
centered
bodies,
and their limbs become four
spider-thin legs slashing
and
reaching
into
the
space.
In another
manifestation,
a
perfectly
vertical line of dots
begins
to undulate
side to
side,
revealing
the limbs of a
moving
dot-dancer. After a brief
solo,
the
figure
simply
seems to turn
sideways, disappearing again
into
verticality.
This effect was an
eerie
exaggeration
of the
very verticality
that is
part
and
parcel
of the
Cunningham
style.
As
Biped progresses,
the viewer encounters an assortment of
moving shapes
and
figures
from the human to the
abstract,
and from
tiny points
of
light
to
looming twenty-
foot
figures
that seem to
step
over the heads of the live dancers. In the
large proscenium
of the State Theater where
Biped
received its New York
premiere,
the
surprising
effect of
these
projections
(visible
because
they
strike a two-dimensional
scrim)
was to enhance
the
three-dimensionality
of the
stage space
and also to
bring Cunningham's
movement
off the
stage
floor and into the air.
But the essence of
Biped
was the
superposition
of virtual dancers and live
dancers in the same
performance space.
It is at the intersection between the two that
Biped produces
both new visual
experiences
and new
meanings.
Of the visual
experi-
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
13
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ences,
Cunningham
had this to
say:
Oh,
I liked it
very
much...I think the
way
the
figures changed
on our
scrim,
with those
very large figures
that moved as
though they
were like
weather,
I
thought
those were
quite
marvelous to look at...I liked the
figures
a little more than the abstract
shapes,
but with both
things,
I
thought
there were moments where the movement of one
thing against
the movement in the
back-say,
the movement of an
object
or a
shape
moving
at a different kind of time than the
dancing-was
a kind of
doubling
of the
possibility
of how
you
see and what
you
see.
But
juxtaposing
a
corps
of virtual
beings against
the live dancers of the
Cunningham
company
also
begged
the
following question:
Who are
they,
and what is their relation-
ship
to their creators and to me as viewer? Or, in other
words,
do these
moving figures
only convey meaning through
the
quality
of their
moving,
or can we also derive mean-
ing
from their condition as virtual
beings?
Bill T.
Jones
and the
Metaphysics
of the Virtual
When a
piece
is danced
by something
no
longer
human,
the critical issues reach far
beyond
whether we will
accept
their movement as
dancing,
because the virtual
figures
have a
very complex relationship
to their
fleshy progenitors:
a
phenomenon
which is
particularly
evident in
Ghostcatching. Ghostcatching begins
with a
single figure
who,
over the course of the
piece, "spawns" (the
word the collaborators used
during
the
creation of the
work)
a number of alter
egos.
Picture a
person
with
multiple personali-
ties,
except
that when a new one
emerges
it
literally leaps
out from the
body
of the
original.
Identified
early
in the collaborative
process,
these
spawns
were
representations
of
emergent
tendencies in the
dancing
of Bill T.
Jones,
each a kind of
qualitative strange
attractor within the maelstrom of his
improvisations.
And
yet,
when we see two or three
or more of these
spawns together
on the
screen,
we know that
each,
in some
way,
"is"
(is
derived
from)
Bill T. Jones. In more traditional
group choreography,
and even in
Hand-drawn
Spaces,
the
choreographer might
create all of the movement for all of the
roles,
but it
happens
in rehearsal
through
a
process
of
negotiation: person-to-person;
body-to-body.
In
Ghostcatching
that
negotiation,
that
testing
of what is
possible
in the
fulfillment of a
choreographic
vision,
occurs
person-to-machine
between the collabora-
tors and the
digital
brood
motion-captured
from Jones.
Early
in its
process Ghostcatching
had another twist.
Although
it did not
happen
for the final
version,
there was an
early
intention to use Jones's
captured
movement as a
kind of motion
alphabet,
and then
develop
software that would allow the
computer
to
combine the elements of that
alphabet
on its
own,
based on
algorithmic
and other
processes (20).
Jones had this to
say
about the
dynamics
of self and
spawn
in
Ghostcatching:
These virtual
creatures,
dancers if
you
will,
are
spawns
of mine.
They
are not me. The word
"spawn"
was a
very
useful
way
for me to under-
stand
my
role in
this,
in the sense that I am the
primary
source of the
movement...This is a world that is almost like another dimension
wherein Bill T. Jones has
been,
somehow or
other,
beamed in and has
caused
something
to
germinate
there and
grow...Where
is this world?
How do
they
inhabit it? And what are
they
like?...What are the values
that we are
giving
to them? What will be
[their] morality?
What will be
[their] poetics?...These
creatures will interact with each other and
they
will
choreograph
themselves.
They
will move like their
great-great
ancestor,
Bill T.
Jones,
but
they
will not look like him. And
he,
in some
ways,
is not even
important
at that
point.
14 Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The
computer
is not the
only technology
that
generates
virtual
dancing beings.
Video
(or film),
while
capturing
the
images
of real
humans,
fixes those
images
at a
specific point
in
space/time.
These fixed
images
each become a kind of
doppelginger
which doesn't
change
or
age
or die
(21).
This
technology
can be used to remember
those not
present,
even to summon them back from the dead. Bill T. Jones has used this
technique
in
Still/Here,
where video offers a voice and a site of resistance for the termi-
nally
ill,
and in his solo
Untitled,
where Jones dances amid the video
presence
of
deceased
partner
Arnie Zane. Asked about his
technological conjuring,
Jones
replied:
I feel as if I'm
ricocheting
back and forth. A moment
ago
I said that
[the
virtual dancer in
Ghostcatching]
is a valid creature. But is that Amie
Zane that
you
see [in
Untitled]?
You see some artifact of Amie:
brief,
poetic, enough
to
give you
the
taste,
the flavor.
Having
danced with
him,
touched
him,
known
him,
I
say
"no,
that's not him." That's the best we
can do. And
maybe
it's the
respectful thing
to
do,
that we don't
try
to
create a
golem
or to resuscitate the loved
one...Now,
having
made that
little
spiel, maybe
some
day,
with the
technology
much more advanced
than we know it
now,
there will be an
entity
that
looks, tastes,
and feels
like
[the original].
Identity,
never an
easy
issue,
has become even more elusive in the
age
of the
computer. Through
incremental advances and media
overexposure
we have become
inured to the
magic
act
performed by technology.
But the artistic
exploration
of the
interface between the
moving body
and
technological representations
of embodiment
can
help
to recover our lost awareness. To dance
onstage
with
yourself,
or to have
your
movements
perform
without
you,
can work to
foreground
the
sleight-of-hand
instead of
gloss
it over. Such art can also function as the means
by
which we more
fully compre-
hend the
relationship
between
people
and their mediated
images,
but
only
if we are both
willing
and able to look beneath the surface.
Where That Leaves Us
I do not think that I am
overstating
when I
say
that we are
standing
at the
edge
of one of
those moments when
dance,
both as a constructed medium of artistic
practices
and as an
expressed
reflection of the broader
culture,
is
radically redefining
itself. When I
stop
to
contemplate
it,
the
images
of two
conflicting
dances seem to coexist in
my
mind. In the
first,
a dancer
stands,
frozen at this moment in
time,
and
any
movement that comes next
will somehow be
perfect, reflecting everything
that we are and
producing everything
we
will become. In the
second,
a dancer rushes
forward,
careening headlong
in an un-
known
direction,
with
only
two
choreographic
rules that
apply:
there is no
stopping,
and
there is no
turning
back.
Whether we are
artists, critics,
or scholars of
dance,
it is
important
to
emphasize
the
perfection
in the duet we have all
begun
with
technology.
No one else will
bring
our
unique
somatic values to the discourse over the role of
technology
in our
future,
nor
more
clearly
sense the
bodily
cost our culture
might
be
paying
for the
power
to create
and control our
reality.
But to
keep
from
feeling
lost in our own
momentum,
we must
open
our
eyes
and
keep asking questions.
Bill T. Jones asks these:
It seems that when we start on these
very tangible
discussions about
technology,
I
always
end
up
here at this
metaphysical place.
That's what
makes me think there's
something very healthy
about this whole virtual
dance
thing.
It's
confronting
us with what we
really
believe about the
transcendent
properties
of our art
form,
and what
gives
it
validity...What
is
"good" choreography,
on
any
level,
and what
qualities
does it have to
have to
really keep
those values that we
prize
so
highly
in live
perfor-
mance? That
question
is even
heightened by
virtual dance...There's
Dance Research Journal 32/1 (Summer 2000)
15
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
something
about movement-in
time,
in
space-that
must succeed on its
own,
without the
help
of the human
personality
and human
performers.
And there we
go
back to the
drawing
board. What is a
gesture?
What is
space
when there is no
space?
And how does it make us care? That's the
big
one,
isn't it? How do we care about dance in the virtual world?
At least for
me,
how we will care about dance in the virtual world is
intimately
tied to whether
we,
as a
culture,
will continue to value the human
body
and human
movement as a conduit for our
expression
in an
age
that has been dubbed
"post-hu-
man."
Technology
can either enhance or obscure the
"humanity"
of
movement,
but
technology
is
becoming
too much a
part
of
every aspect
of our lives now
(how
we
travel,
how we
communicate,
even how we
procreate)
to be
legitimately ignored
in
some kind of
purist
zeal. If our dance is to reflect our
lives,
we must learn to create new
movements in new
spaces,
and dance with the
technology
within and around us.
Notes
1. Production credits for these
pieces
are as
follows: Hand-drawn
Spaces,
SIGGRAPH
Electronic
Theater, Orlando, Florida,
July
20, 1998;
Choreography-Merce
Cunningham; Digital designs-Paul
Kaiser
and
Shelley
Eshkar;
Sound
design-Ron
Kuivila;
Software
design-Michael
Girard
and Susan Amkraut of Unreal
Pictures;
In-
stallation and
projection design-Marco
Steinberg; Motion-captured
dancers-
Jeannie Steele and Jared
Phillips.
Ghostcatching, Houghton Gallery,
The Coo-
per
Union for the Advancement of Science
and
Art,
New
York,
New
York,
January
4,
1999;
Choreography,
movement and
voice- Bill T.
Jones;
Visual and sound de-
sign-Paul
Kaiser and
Shelley
Eshkar;
Ad-
ditional
design
and motion correction-
Susan Amkraut and Michael Girard.
Biped,
Zellerbach
Hall,
Berkeley,
California,
April
23, 1999;
Choreography-Merce
Cunningham; Projections
and visual decor-
Paul Kaiser and
Shelley
Eshkar;
Music com-
position-Gavin Bryars;
Software
design-
Michael Girard and Susan Amkraut of Un-
real
Pictures;
Live dancers-the Merce
Cunningham
Dance
Company; Motion-cap-
tured dancers-Jeannie
Steele,
Robert
Swinston,
and Jared
Phillips. Lighting
de-
sign-Aaron Copp;
Costume
design-
Suzanne
Gallo;
Projection-Jack Young.
2. A few dance/tech artists have written
about this new
work,
producing
articles and
manifestos and how-to instructions and links
to online
performances, attempting
to share
their efforts and stimulate discourse. But
these
writings
are often
only
found in tech-
nology-dependent
sources such as online
magazines
or
postings
on
listservs,
logical
places
to reach the
growing membership
of
a
techno-savvy
subculture,
but not
yet
on
the radar screen for
many
dance scholars.
3. I use the
passive
"are moved"
because,
at
least in the works I am familiar
with,
Kaiser
and Eshkar
make,
or collaborate with oth-
ers
on,
all of the decisions about how and
when movement occurs and what the viewer
will see of it-not unlike most Western
film,
theater,
or concert dance.
4. When "virtual" dances are
primarily
ac-
cessible via the internet
they
can also be
called "web
dance,"
but the
accuracy
and/
or
acceptance
of these terms is still
being
hotly
debated
by
the creators and viewers
of such works.
5. At the 1999 International Dance and
Technology
conference the term "screen-
dance" was
proposed
to
encompass
dance
work
involving computers,
film,
or video
because all are
experienced
on some kind
of screen:
television,
computer
monitor,
or
projection.
6. All
quotations
from Bill T. Jones are taken
from a
personal
interview I conducted with
him at Aaron Davis Hall in New York on
July
15,
1999.
7. Archives for the discussion
topics
from
this listserv are available on the Dance and
16 Dance Research Journal 32/1 (Summer
2000)
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Technology
Zone website:
http://
www.art.net/~dtz/index.html.
8. I would like to credit dance scholar Ann
Dils for
seeing motion-capture
as an identi-
fication
technology.
9. These
questions clearly already apply
to
film and video documentations of dances.
10. The
manipulation
of
light
and
dark,
of
color and
shape
and
motion,
is the essence
of video and film and
computer graphics,
and the
experience
of them is
time-depen-
dent as in dance.
Space
is a
primary
differ-
entiating
factor
since,
at least at
present,
screen-based media are seen in two-dimen-
sional formats.
Three-dimensionality
can
only
be
represented.
11. The affiliations are as follows: at Ohio
State,
the dance
department
shares some
personnel
and resources with ACCAD
(the
Advanced
Computing
Center for the Arts and
Design);
at Arizona
State,
the dance
depart-
ment is associated with ISA
(the
Institute for
Studies in the
Arts);
and at Wisconsin-Madi-
son,
the dance
program plays
a role in
IATECH
(the
Interarts and
Technology
Pro-
gram).
12. All
quotations
from Merce
Cunningham
are taken from a
personal
interview I con-
ducted with him in New York
City
on Octo-
ber
12,
1999.
13. Note the masculinist hunter/killer refer-
ences
already
built into the lexicon of tech-
nology.
You
"capture"
the motion. You
"shoot" the film or video.
14. In
painting
and
sculpture,
the human
artistic
activity
is transferred into other me-
dia. In
music,
the human
performative pro-
cess is focused
through
a
variety
of instru-
ments.
Singing
and
theater,
like
dance,
re-
side in the
body,
but in recent centuries have
become
textually separable
from it.
tural
imperative)
to
pull
us out of our own
somatic
experience,
toward
seeing aspects
of the
dancing
as
separate
from ourselves.
16. Take blue-screen video as an
example.
By shooting
a dancer in front of a consis-
tent blue
background,
an editor can use an
effect called
"chroma-keying"
to then
place
that
figure against any background
desired,
thus
spatially re-contexting
the dance.
17. To
keep
from
going
too far
back,
I am
intentionally overlooking
the
symbolic rep-
resentation of natural
objects (art) which,
like
writing,
existed
beyond
the boundaries of
the
originator,
and
probably
also facilitated
the
development
of written
language.
18. I
suspect
that it is
possible
that some
experts
can
experience
a
degree
of kines-
thesia from
reading
a notated
score,
but I
think there are severe limits on such
experi-
ences.
19.
Clearly,
to choose to create such
beings
marks them as the
offspring
of a
very spe-
cific kind of artist within a
technologically
privileged
culture,
but the
figures
do not
have
any
outward
signs
of race or sex or
sociocultural status.
20.
Algorithms
are
predetermined step-by-
step procedures
used
by computers
to ac-
complish complex
tasks.
21. There is a sense that when we have
"cap-
tured" a dance
through technology
we have
saved it for all time.
Technological
docu-
ments do
age
and
die,
but
they
do so differ-
ently
than humans. Or
perhaps
not so dif-
ferently
because
they
tend to die in two
ways:
the
image
deteriorates over time until it no
longer satisfactorily
recalls the
original;
or
the media break down
suddenly
from mis-
use or accident.
15. In
many ways,
mirrors were the first
imaging technology
(as
opposed
to a cul-
Dance Research Journal 32/1
(Summer 2000)
17
This content downloaded from 137.21.7.121 on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:54:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions