Content-Type: text/plain X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by lists.acs.ohio-state.edu id SAA28623 a r e p o r t : DANCING WITH THE MOUSE - CONFERENCE OCTOBER 12 - 15, 2000 _______________________________________ At the end of the three day conference held at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas (USA), the dance professionals and dance educators expressed a strong sense of shared commitment to further integrating new media and technologies into the practice and teaching of dance. The group also expressed a strong interest in continuing the "Dancing with the Mouse" conference format, preferably circling the United States (from south to west, then back midwest to east coast) and thus reaching as many regional constituencies as possible. This was the second “Dancing with the Mouse” conference (last year it took place in South Carolina), again carefully and expertly co-organized by Keitha Manning and Joanne Lunt (assisted by Lisa Naugle, Univ. of California-Irvine) with a keen eye on making the program not too extensive so that attendants could participate in as many sessions as possible. The number of attendants (65) was roughly the same as last year. Sponsored by the National Dance Association (of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance), the meeting was primarily addressing the needs and interests of dance educators eager to exchange experiences and learn more about the possibilities of new technologies and their impact on dance practices. The emphasis, thus, was more on workshopping the tools rather than offering new artistic works. It was apparent, however, that we are experiencing a small, exponentially growing revolution in practices that link teaching, preservation/documentation, and choreography/production. Video cameras/projectors and computers have made it into the “classroom” for sure. Classrooms and rehearsal studios around the country (as in other parts of the world) are being wired for internet access and the whole system of distributed information now common in most libraries. This development has reached primary education, and the attendance of school teachers (pre-k, middle and high) is therefore most significant, since they will meet and train the young generations of dancers, musicians and artists of the future. The distribution of media technologies into all sectors of education is a matter of enormous political and cultural significance, and questions of equal access, continuing education (for students, teachers, independent artists), and diversity will always remain critical in the area that we have come to call “dance and technology.” We often look at it as a field of artistic practice, research/development, and creative experimentation, but I left the conference feeling convinced, more than ever, that we also need to network about issues of education, training, technique, and cross-disciplinary thinking, and of course we are also responsible for programs in community outreach. Thus it was significant that representatives of presenters/venues and directors of education (of dance companies) were also present, since they could point out how important it is to make new, technologically driven work accessible to the general audience. Similarly, as dance scholars are now producing databases and multimedia documentations of dance in CD-ROM/DVD format, or are constructing courses and distance learning projects via the internet, the challenge of how to integrate and disseminate new software applications, webbased/videoconferencing technologies, and products into education and documentation is considerable and, I’d say, enormously exciting. If recorded music, movies, and television have swept through all corners of our world, as oral and print literatures, religious, cultural, food and military practices had done before, then information and communications technologies in dance may signal a new stage in which movement as a visual artform and as somatic and kinesthetic experience will produce new adaptations of knowledge, different conceptions of the moving body, real and virtual space, and design. I mention design because I believe that dance and music technologists who work in interactive design creation pursue interests that are linked (within a history of craftsmanship and invention) to computer engineering, software and industrial design, robotics, ergonomics, motion synthesis (animation), and medical and biotechnological research. Movement capacity may be an artform, but as Anne Green Gilbert (Seattle) pointed out in her “Brain Dance” workshop, it is also a vital concern in current brain research and learning therapy. The whole discussion about movement (and the ‘design” of new techniques and body-image perceptions) in the digital age has only just begun. The conference offered hands- on practical workshops (teaching dance with multimedia, Midi, and interactive computer tools), software workshops (Lifeforms, Labanwriter, iMOVIE, Poser, SoundEdit 16, Premiere, educational CD's, web, etc), lectures on documentation/preservation/notation, history-teaching, and virtual dance (motion capture), composition (with music, interactive technology), environments, and other research (in dance forms and dance cultures, interdisciplinary techniques such as choreography and writing, or the tracing of dance diasporas with Geographic Information Systems). Many of the sessions were participatory, but I should mention that (predictably?) software was taught in computer labs, while workshops took place on the dance floor, and lectures were held in lecture halls. We were criss-crossing the campus from dawn to dusk. In one instance, Elizabeth Gillaspy (TCU) showed Forsythe’s CD-ROM “Improvisation Technologies” in the dance studio and then had two of her dance students apply Forsythe’s ideas right there on the floor. Valarie Mockabee’s presentation of her OSU-based CD-ROM project "PREY" (on choreographer Bebe Miller) was outstanding, delineating the path of future multimedia documentations of danceworks linking digital video/photography, notation, music score, text, and extensive notes on process and context. A vibrant discussion followed, in which issues of preservation/recreation, the value and focus on choreographic process versus critical interpretation, choices of video-documentation techniques and possible future links to motion capture software, but also of copyright concerns and distribution were articulated. Candace Feck (OSU) led a panel discussion on “Bodies in Cyberspace” which featured very thought-provoking talks by Ann Dils (Greensboro) on motion capture and “absence” (Kaiser/Cunningham/ Bill T. Jones) and Kent deSpain (Athens) on the convoluted, psychologically anxious and politically controversial relationship to the “diva” technology. He urged us to reflect carefully on the sensitive issue of who decides which technologies are implemented (in education), who invests and who gets access to them, which technology serves whom, and how do we manage the constantly necessary upgrades and degenerations of materials and equipments. The concluding roundtables picked up the thread, addressing issues of copyright, advocacy, outreach, and policy making in the future development of dance-technology education and production. Honorary awards were handed out to folks who helped to build the dance-tech momentum, such as the OSU-team (Vera Maletic, Will Smith, Robbie Shaw, Candace Feck) who developed the OSU-MDP (Shaw also announcing the completion of the new danceCODES shell, a dynamic database which has design and programming already complete for the user), and Tom Calvert (Technical University of British Columbia and Founder of Credo Interactive, Inc.) who developed Life Forms and gave the keynote address on “Beyond the Desktop: Towards the Virtual Dance Space” - in which he predicted a future of connected technologies/spaces in which live dancers interact with computer-generated figures in composition, rehearsal and performance. In the roundtable on “Technology in Choreography and Performance,” I tried to summarize briefly some proposals I had brought to the “Environments” workshop I taught and others that emerged during the weekend. I will only list them here: 1) a new space for new dance (integrated studios that combine training and performance with media and technology instruments/softwares for experimentation), 2) a complete restructuring of the existing model of dominant ballet/modern education, opening out to dance fusions and new techniques/new processes that are team based and no longer hierarchical 3) destructuring of existing curricula and the exploration of dynamic/interactive learning and composition environments that integrate all the arts, 4) consequently, a stronger emphasis on interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research and development in performance technologies and designs, 5) along with new techniques (in multimedia composition or documentation) develop new art and dance educational outreaches and advocacy to bridge the gaps (for example between our schools, club cultures, mainstream and alternative art circles, museum education, festivals, workshops, and the sometimes rarefied fringe underground or virtual playground of dance technology/digital art). Finally, the Mouse conference had a nice paradoxical evening concert, in which Robert Wechsler (Palindrome Intermedia Performance Group, Nurnberg/Germany) could only speak about, and show videos of, his expansive professional experience in interactive performance design (his computer software and engineer-collaborator did not arrive on time). But he gave a lively talk, and performed briefly with young dancers in an ad-hoc piece. Lisa Naugle, honorary guest professor at TCU, had worked extensively with 6 dance students and presented a spirited, highly liquid piece (“Split”) which featured her choreography and upstage screen projections of digital film animations created by John Crawford (Vancouver). Astonishingly, although the screen projections at times appeared to overwhelm the dancers onstage, they were abstracted movement passages from the same dance that were truly beautiful and haunting; the figures on screen seemed nearly transparent and appeared as if they were motion-capture based. [see videostill, (c)2000 L.Naugle/J.Crawford] Barbara Hernandez (director, NDA) and Keitha Manning urged some of us to offer courses and summer schools introducing dance software, since more and more teachers in the field need to gain hands on training, and people are most happy if they walk away with a software they’ve just learnt to use (free demo software was passed out). The question of distance learning in dance was mentioned briefly, but not examined. Lisa Naugle and myself discussed the possibility of hosting a future Mouse conference, but I also stated that OSU would more likely be interested in hosting an international performance-and creation-oriented IDAT conference in future years (2004?). We on the US side wait to hear from Richard Povall and our friends in the Europe and elsewhere about their plans. Jenny Mendez, a young Latina dancer from TCU who videotaped the sessions, mentioned that she attended the summer camp of the American College Dance Festival Association, and in 6 weeks of training no one mentioned technology. Interesting. That may very well have been the last time. respectfully, Johannes Birringer AlienNation Co. http://www.aliennationcompany.com OSU_Dance http://www.wexarts.org/thefold/practice/practiceframes.html Attachment converted: Personal Files:split.gif 1 (GIFf/8BIM) (00009AD7)
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