From Assistant to Performer: The Changing Role of Technologies in Digital Dance
In: The Visual in Performance PracticeSearch for other papers by Zeynep Gündüz in
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According to Baugh (2005), in terms of the function of technologies in performance, most often technologies have served to assist the performance. Baugh claims that the history of integration of technologies in performance has created a certain mode of perception, which he refers to as the ‘hierarchy of perceptual importance.’ According to Baugh, the hierarchy of perceptual importance places the performer centre stage while the technology remains in the periphery. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that this hierarchy of perceptual importance no longer holds when we consider dance performances that integrate recently developed motion-tracking based real time interactive technologies. Via a case study of a digital dance performance Glow, dance reviews, and literature on digital dance, this chapter argues that Glow’s choreography changes the conventional centre-periphery mode of perception to one of centre-centre. Moreover, it argues that Glow allows a mutual interaction between the animate and inanimate elements onstage, which transforms the role of technologies into a performer, and thus, the relationship between dancer and technology into a duet.