Hello List,
I have been away from the list for a crazy long time and it's great to
revisit and see so many passionate debates. I found Roberts reports on his
Hellerau workshop, the questions he asked of himself in the process to ring
with a personal truth for me. We are all still grappling with our why's and
how's - excellent. I scanned over as many postings...some thoughts.
First, I find it interesting that there still seems to be a lot of
discussion/energy on the validity of "Dance & Technology" and who is
responsible for keeping it going (i.e Artists of Technologists). There is
no void in the dance community at large that needs to be filled. Does it
really matter who is driving it or who really needs it? We drive it, we
need it. Artist's & Technologists. I am fatigued from defending my interest
in using interactive sensing systems in my work. Why are we all so
concerned about whether it's ok for us to use new media devices in our
works, even if we don't know why we are using them. It is ok. We each have
our reasons don't we? Are we that insecure? Just make a definition for
yourself and go. The hype won't last forever and actually maybe we can help
by not hyping our own work?? Yikes. Great artists will emerge (maybe have
alreday) form all of our efforts to define this genre. But perhaps there is
not one giant definition but many small ones. Maybe it would serve us
better to have critical disussions about specific works instead of the
genre as a whole. Isn't it too diverse?
I just read an article in the NY Times about Robert Rauschenberg. He said
"I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At
the time that I am bored or understand, another appetite has formed...Being
right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea." I found his
thoughts to be inspired.
Second, Troika Ranch makes much less of a big deal about our use of the
computer in the creation and performance of our works than we used to. We
now use the term "media intensive" or "new dance theater" which means
usually video and electronic sound and sensing systems and set pieces and
dance and theater all mixed into one. We have found the ommission of words
like "computer controlled or mediated or technology" from our programs,
postcards and (some) PR to serve us. I have heard from more than a few
people that they came to our shows - knowing about all that technology-
with the expectation that the work would be bad (like so many other
technology works they have seen) but that they were suprised by the work's
content, the subtlties of the technologies and enjoyed it. I think it's
necessary to find adjectives to describe one's work for the press and
public but I now feel a slight bias against "technology" not this elevated
statis refered to in a past posting. I don't want to alienate an audience
but using certain words that may lead them to choose NOT to come see the
work. We are a dance theater company. Yes we use fancy computer's and video
and whatnot but still we are a dance theater company. And that is how I
want to be percieved.
Third, we recently gave our Live-I (live interactive) workshop in NYC. We
had 11 participants and all but 2 were dancers/choreographers. I was really
excited by that. However, we too had a dance space and hardly got up from
behind our computers to use it. I felt that the learning curve on the side
of the software was so giant that we could barely get to the theory's and
idea's behind using those softwares. This was ok in the end because I look
at the workshop as an introduction for dancers/choreographers who have no
other way (beisde the workshops offered by many of us on this list) to find
out about this information except to enroll in University programs. Now we
can offer a Level 2 workshop that can take those participants from the
practical to the theorhetical. All I can do at this point is try to guide
the student to consider their use of "technology" with the same amount of
rigor that they consider all the aspects of the work that they are making.
Getting these workshops to really be about dancing/performance/composition
is a tough issue because you can't teach the tools AND the composition for
the tools in a week. At least I have not achieved this. Any Live-I
participants on this list that can comment on your workshop experience with
Troika???
Yeah, ok. That's all.
Dawn
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Dawn Stoppiello / Artistic Co-Director / Troika Ranch / troika@artswire.org
http://www.troikaranch.org
321 Graham Avenue #4R Brooklyn, NY 11211 +1.718.218.6775
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