interactive performance series and workshop

This dialog on dance and technology as a field of research, and on current perspectives in the theory and practive of dance and technology, was conducted at the end of the spring quarter 2003, at The Ohio State University, Department of Dance.

A weekend think-tank between choreographers, media artists, software
developers, musicians, composers, and writers, at the Dance Department, Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio.

Public Webcast: Saturday January 26, 7:oo- 8:oo pm EST. (click on homepage "live stream")

Public Roundtable: Sunday, January 27, 12:oo noon, Sullivant Theatre, 1813 N High Street

scenes from IPS workshop with Iris Tenge (Frankfurt) and Lali Krotoszynski (Sao Paulo)

An archive of the weekend and the workshops that preceded the think tank has been created.

Through sessions on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, all invited participants had the opportunity to present 30 minute-“tutorials” of their work with software systems & applications.
These sessions defined our practical and conceptual parameters for "New Performance Tools: Technologies / Interactive Systems," finding common grounds between developers, builders, choreographers/performers, musicians/composers, installation artists/architects and writers and those who exhibit work llkthat creates or supports human sensory activity, dance in real and virtual space, interactive and responsive environments, digital audio processes, virtual worlds and lifeforms.

During the Saturday sessions, we developed 3-4 key questions around digital tools and "systems” and the evolution of art in the electronic landscapes and cultural arenas, paying attention also to how our work relates to global flows of culture and cross-cultural exchanges, how such exchanges have been enhanced by new media technologies which enable specific forms of collaboration and convergence.

Saturday afternoon wasdedicated to an experimental lab allowing for exchanges of
works-in-progress, show and tell, hands-on tests, rehearsals, etc.

The Saturday sessions concluded with an attempt at summing up the preliminary findings
resulting from our discussions and exchanges, drafting conceptual outlines, ideas, propositions or future projects or current evaluations of work in alpha and beta-phases of development. The “findings”-session was organized as a quasi-live performance (for documentation and teleconference). Findings were prepared for debate and critical analysis during the last day.

Before the “findings”-session there is a brief opportunity to look at some telepresence work-in-progress organized by the Environments 7 Lab at OSU and ADaPT, as we prepare our one-hour live streamed “Proposiciones” session (which will also be audio-taped and transcribed).

On Sunday the participants met for a late morning brainstorming session, intended to review formulations of findings, followed by a public roundtable in which current research in digital art, dance and media was contextualized and debated.

Scott deLahunta (Dartington College, England) - Johannes Birringer (OSU, organizer) - Curtis Bahn (Interface) - Tomie Hahn (Interface) -
Dan Trueman (Interface) - Mark Coniglio (Troika Ranch) - Dawn Stoppiello (Troika Ranch) - Todd Winkler (Brown University) -
David Tonnesen (FoAM Lab, Brussels) - Lali Krotoszynski (São Paulo, Brazil) - Sarah Rubidge (England) - Robbie Shaw (OSU) -
Bebe Miller (OSU) - Marc Ainger (OSU) - David Tinapple (Columbus) - Kelly Gotteman (OSU) - Axel Roesler (OSU) - Liza McConnell (Columbus) .

The concept for this meeting goes back to conversations between Scott deLahunta/Birringer, and the pathbreaking "Software for Dancers" event, a London-based research project (24 September- 6 October, 2001) aimed at developing concepts for software rehearsal tools for dance makers, and at using the opportunity to open up discussion about collaborative practices involving live performance and digital technologies.

The primary research team in London, convened by deLahunta, comprised choreographers [Siohban Davies, Shobana Jeyasingh, Wayne McGregor and Ashley Page] working in collaboration with digital artists/ coders from the UK and Germany. The OSU think tank is phase two, staged in the U.S. and intended to continue the London thread. We will bring together practitioners from Europe, the U.S, and Latin America, and later in 2002 continue to collaborate with artists in Latin America and Asia. Several Brazilian dance technologists are visiting OSU this year.

Various schools of thought associated with software and interactive and virtual world/mixed reality systems will be compared and contrasted. Discussions and debates may also cover various issues related to public subsidy for creative software development, ownership, commercial and Intellectual Property issues, digital ecology theory, and collaborative research in an international and transcultural context.

please visit the IPS-2 LAB here

IPS # 2 "DANCE AND INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGY"

June 18 -June 30, 2001

directed by Johannes Birringer, with David Covey and Roberta Shaw.

Guest Artists: Interface (Curtis Bahn, Dan Trueman, Tomie Hahn)

Description:

The new digital dimensions of our dance-making processes challenge
preconceptions about performance practice and technique, and they have
not only changed the space in which we experiment, but also demand an
alternative form of collaboration among all the participants.

With the creation of the IPS (Interactive Performance Series), OSU
invites some of the practicing artists at the forefront of these
developments to the campus, creating an interface with faculty,
students, and practitioners enrolling in the workshop. The workshop
creates a laboratory for new techniques, and focuses on the
interdisciplinary process of the creation of live inter-active
performance, in order to build a wider community for new dance media.

http://www.wexarts.org/thefold/practice/practiceframes.html

OSU offers a fully equipped dance-and-media lab (two studios) set up for
multimedia experimentation. Participants have the option to work with
Robbie Shaw and her digital documentation tool "danceCODES" to
creatively document the workshop process and the creation of the final concert.

This documentation process involves digital video documentation, digital editing, image
processing and discussions of documentation modes. Those eager to learn
basic multimedia skills may find this side of the lab useful.
Participants may move between working on the documentation or the
creation side of the lab. (For danceCodes contact: shaw.146@osu.edu)

The Lab is an interdisciplinary arts laboratory for dancers, performers,
musicians, visual artists, designers, and media artists. Based in
sound & movement research/motion studies, the lab focuses on the role
of the performer and designer working with interactive technologies and
sensor systems.

Emphasis in the rehearsals and design sessions will be on the creative

exploration of interactive or so-called sensitive/intelligent environments.

The workshop features the ensemble "INTERFACE - Curtis Bahn, Dan
Trueman, and Tomie Hahn.
(http://silvertone.princeton.edu/~crb/Streams/streams.htm)

These artists, distinguished by their artistic work with
music/dance/sensor interface design, join the workshop team in the
second week and conduct experiments and rehearsals culminating in a
public performance on Saturday, June 30.

Interactive Performance Series
Department of Dance in cooperation with The Wexner Center for the Arts

IPS # 1
"Dance and Motion Capture"

Featured Guest Artists: Bill T Jones / Paul Kaiser (April 20-21)
Lisa Naugle (Dance Department, U of California-Irvine), Scott deLahunta (Dartington College, UK) (April 20-26)

Event Sequence:

04/20 10 - 12:30 am Masterclass with Bill T Jones or Jones/Arnie Zane company rehearsal director, 10 - 12:30 am Studio I, Dance Department

04/20 3:oo - 5:30 pm Public lecture/demo: „Dance and Motion Capture": Paul Kaiser, in dialogue with choreograppher Bill T. Jones, Wexner Center Video/Film Theatre

04/21 4- 6 pm Public lecture on „Dance and Digital Arts", featuring Paul Kaiser, Lisa Naugle, Director, Dance&Technology Program , Univ. of California-Irvine, and Scott deLahunta (Dartington College, UK). Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, public event, campus wide invitation across many departments, including invitation to public and interested members of the Columbus computer science and technology community)

04/21 8:oo pm „You Walk?" Concert at Wexner Center (Mershon Auditorium)
Post-performancer discussion with Bill T Jones and Paul Kaiser immediately following the show.

04/24 5 - 10 pm Masterclass with Scott deLahunta and Lisa Naugle, ACCAD/Motion Capture Studio/Environments Laboratory.

04/25 8:oo pm. Sullivant Theatre. Public Round Table Discussion: "Digital Dancing: Technology, Diversity, Access." With Lisa Naugle, ScottdeLahunta, Bebe Miller, Maria Palazzi, Robbie Shaw and student representatives Carla Hughes, Lenita Williamson, Elisha Clark, Vicki Watts. Moderated by Johannes Birringer.

Interactive Performance Series is a praxis-based arts laboratory. It is an important dimension of the development of the new dance & technology curriculum and of future research and production originating in the Dance Department at OSU. The Series is conceived in close co-operation with other partners both locally (Wexner Art Center, Art Department, Music Department, Theatre Department, ACCAD, etc) and internationally. IPS emphasizes the need for a new multimedia laboratory environment for future research and experimentation in new dance/media arts technology and in cross-disciplinary research in the visual/ performing arts and the sciences.

(1) a vital space for our concerted effort to integrate new digital technologies as environments into our teaching, research, creative production and expanded vision for a new dance-technology curriculum and for new performance techniques. This laboratory also integrates Lighting/Production, Digital Video-Media, and other digital, sensor, capture, and online/videoconferencing technologies for creation and for documentation. Based in the new paradigm of cross-disciplinary, team-based project development, the interfaces will involve faculty, students, and visiting artists from the College of the Arts and beyond (e.g. sciences, medicine, humantities, engineering), as well as from our partnership organisations in other parts of the world.

(2) „collaborative workshops" with visiting artists in the dance/technology, design, media and the electronic music fields who are invited for a residency and for concerts so that our joint teams can experiment with interactive design through direct hands-on experience in the interface and the production of a concert or installation. The new digital dimensions of our processes challenge preconceptions about performance practice, and they have not only changed the space in which we experiment, but also demand alternative forms of collaboration among all the participants, and new forms of transaction with our audiences.

With the creation of the IPS we hope to bring some of the practicing artists at the forefront of these developments to our campus, creating an interfaces (master classes/project teams) and the opportunity for public concert/exhibitions of new interactive performance works, in order to build a wider community for new dance media.

The Program endeavors to institute two annual one or two-week residencies of visiting artists, including workshops for our students, an in-house experimental environment-performance at Haskett Hall and/or a public concert at Wexner Center Black Box Theatre or the Sullivant Theatre. IPS will link a diversity of local and international artists into this research concept, and although the project is university-based, we hope to attract a wider audience-following from the urban communities. We also intend IPS to be a corner stone in a future international and cross-cultural exchange program with a parallel artistic project undertaken by Scott deLahunta (Dartington College, UK), our associates in the ADaPT initiative (Assiciation of Dance and Performance Telematics), and other artists in the dance and music technology network.

The Dance and Technology Program at OSU is proud to announce that is has initiated its first motion capture research group project in April 2001, in conjunction with the opening of the new interdisciplinary MotionCapture Studio within the College of the Arts. The Motion Capture Research Focus Group is developing its practice under the umbrella of the "Environments VI" laboratory conducted by Johannes Birringer.

The documentation of the first dance and motion capture laboratory in the history of OSU's Dance Department is available in our current ARCHIVE which will be updated as we continue our research.