Table Of ContentTRANSMISSION IN MOTION
How can various technologies, from the more conventional to the very new, be
used to archive, share and understand dance movement? How can they become
part of new ways of creating dance? What does this tell us about the ways in which
technology shapes how we think?
Well-known choreographers and dance collectives, including William Forsythe,
Siobhan Davis, Merce Cunningham, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Emio Greco |
PC and BADco., have initiated projects to investigate these questions. In so
doing, they have inaugurated a new era for dance archives, education, research
and creation. Their work draws attention to the intimate relationship between the
technologies we use and the ways in which we think, perceive and make sense.
Transmission in Motion examines these extraordinary projects ‘from the inside’,
presenting in-depth analyses by the practitioners, artists and collectives involved in
their development. These projects are framed by scholarly reflection, illuminat-
ing their significance in the context of current debates on dance, the (multimedia)
archive, immaterial cultural heritage and copyright, embodied cognition, education,
media culture and the knowledge society.
Maaike Bleeker is a professor in the Department of Media and Culture Studies
at Utrecht University.
TRANSMISSION IN
MOTION
The technologizing of dance
Edited by Maaike Bleeker
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2017 Maaike Bleeker
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Bleeker, Maaike, editor.
Title: Transmission in motion : the technologizing of dance / edited
by Maaike Bleeker.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009866| ISBN 9781138189430 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138189447 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315524177 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dance and technology. | Dance—Data processing.
Classification: LCC GV1588.7 .T73 2016 | DDC 792.8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009866
ISBN: 978-1-138-18943-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-18944-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-52417-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
List of illustrations viii
Notes on contributors xi
Preface xvi
Introduction xviii
PART I 1
1 Movements across media: twelve tools for transmission 3
Maaike Bleeker and Scott deLahunta
2 Not fade away: thoughts on preserving Cunningham’s Loops 16
Paul Kaiser
3 Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine: the experience of
a sensorial edition 32
Florence Corin
4 William Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies and beyond:
a short design history of digital dance transmission
projects on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, 1994–2011 41
Chris Ziegler
5 A Choreographer’s Score: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker 52
Bojana Cvejic´
vi Contents
6 Archiving the dance: making Siobhan Davies Replay 62
Sarah Whatley
7 Searching movement’s history: Digital Dance Archives 70
Rachel Fensham
8 The Dance-tech project: how like a network 80
Marlon Barrios Solano in collaboration with Rachel Boggia
9 Double Skin/Double Mind: Emio Greco | PC’s interactive installation 91
Bertha Bermúdez Pascual
10 Synchronous Objects: what else might this dance look like? 99
Norah Zuniga Shaw
11 Wayne McGregor’s Choreographic Language Agent 108
Scott deLahunta
12 BADco. and Daniel Turing: Whatever Dance Toolbox 118
Nikolina Pristaš, Goran Sergej Pristaš and Tomislav Medak
13 Motion Bank: a broad context for choreographic research 128
Scott deLahunta
PART II 139
14 Making knowledge from movement: some notes on the
contextual impetus to transmit knowledge from dance 141
James Leach
15 Dancing in digital archives: circulation, pedagogy, performance 155
Harmony Bench
16 Digital dance: the challenges for traditional copyright law 168
Charlotte Waelde and Sarah Whatley
17 Between grammatization and live movement sampling 185
Sally Jane Norman
18 What if this were an archive? Abstraction, enactment and
human implicatedness 199
Maaike Bleeker
Contents vii
19 Indeterminate acts: technology, choreography
and bodily affects in Displace 215
Chris Salter
20 Newman’s note, entanglement and the demands of
choreography: letter to a choreographer 228
Alva Noë
Index 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
2.1 Annotated code script for first version of Loops, 2001. Courtesy of
the OpenEndedGroup. 24
2.2 Excerpt of Loops Score, 2004. Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup. 26
2.3 Conceptual diagram, 2008. Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup. 27
2.4 Conceptual diagram, 2008. Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup. 28
2.5 Conceptual diagram, 2008. Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup. 28
2.6 Conceptual diagram, 2008. Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup. 29
4.1 The Loss of Small Detail (1994) showing William Forsythe,
Dana Caspersen. Photos © Dominik Mentzos. Screenshots by
Chris Ziegler. 42
4.2 Self Meant to Govern (1995) showing Christine Bürkle, Francesca
Harper, Andrea Tallis, Ana Catalina Roman, Emily Molnar,
Jill Johnson, William Forsythe. Screenshots by Chris Ziegler. 43
4.3 William Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies. A Tool for the Analytical
Dance Eye, (1999) showing Noah D. Gelber, William Forsythe,
Thomas McManus. Screenshots by Chris Ziegler. 45
4.4 That’s Kyogen! (2001) showing Mansaku and Mansai Nomura.
Screenshots by Chris Ziegler. 46
4.5 NAGARIKA 1 Bharatanatyam (2006) showing V.P. Dhananjayan,
Prof. C.V. Chandrashekhar, Deepti Rajesh of Bharatakalanjali,
Shantha Dhananjayan. Screenshots by Chris Ziegler. 48
4.6 NAGARIKA 2 Kalaripayatthu (2010), showing G. Sathyanarayanan
Gurukkal, Rajesh and Sreejesh of Hindustan Kalari. Screenshots
by Chris Ziegler. 49
Illustrations ix
7.1 Sample of the 65 pose search queries tested in the Digital Dance
Archives. Screenshot by John Collomosse. 76
8.1 The dance-tech.net home page featuring the video Pathfinder by
and with Mio Loclair. Photo by Ragnar Schmuck. Image by Marlon
Barrios Solano, 2015. 83
8.2 A page of dance-tech.net with videos tagged with “cognition”
featuring conversations with Lisa Nelson, Alva Noë, William Forsythe
and Glenna Batson. Image by Marlon Barrios Solano, 2015. 85
8.3 The home page of dance-tech.tv. Image by Marlon Barrios Solano,
2015. 86
8.4 Collage of screenshots taken during work sessions and creative
projects during Meta-Academy@Bates 2013. Images by Marlon
Barrios Solano, collage by Rachel Boggia. 88
9.1 Double Skin/Double Mind, the installation. Photo by
Thomas Lenden, 2009. 92
9.2 The Double Skin/Double Mind glossary as it appears as part of
the installation manual. Courtesy of the artists. 93
9.3 Double Skin/Double Mind showing choreographer Emio Greco
giving instructions. Photo by Thomas Lenden, 2009. 94
9.4 Double Skin/Double Mind showing Bertha Bermúdez Pascual
in the installation. On screen choreographer Emio Greco
giving instructions. Photo by Thomas Lenden, 2009. 95
10.1 Opening interface online for Synchronous Objects. Courtesy of the
artists William Forsythe, Maria Palazzi and Norah Zuniga Shaw. 100
10.2 The Data Fan object from Synchronous Objects created using
choreographic cueing and alignment data from William Forsythe’s
One Flat Thing, reproduced. Courtesy of the artists William Forsythe,
Maria Palazzi and Norah Zuniga Shaw. 101
10.3 Image from Synchronous Objects: Reproduced video installation at
PACT Zollverein Essen, Germany, August 2010. Curator Andreas
Broeckmann. Courtesy of the artists William Forsythe, Maria
Palazzi and Norah Zuniga Shaw. 106
11.1 The left and right screens of the Choreographic Language Agent.
Courtesy of the OpenEndedGroup & Wayne McGregor|Random
Dance. 113
11.2 Experimental sketching of a new movement sequence (left),
followed by dance exploration of the geometry created (right).
Dancer is Jessica Wright. Photos: Luke Church. 113
12.1 Screenshot of Matching Positions. Image courtesy of BADco. 119
12.2 Screenshot of Inertia. Image courtesy of BADco. 120
