Managing instability

The chapter discusses the work of choreographer Russell Dumas from the point of view of a dancer in his work.

Embodying provenance

An interview with choreographer Russell Dumas discussing his dance practice and his work with dancers in the context of the European-Australian dance politics and culture.

What is a transmitter?

This article discusses the approach that Yvonne Rainer has taken to conserving her Trio A, a work made originally in 1966 and which has been performed many times since, including now by custodians or ‘transmitters’ of the dance. The discussion is contextualized within the broader frame of the question of whether and how the legacy of modern and postmodern dance might be maintained for the benefit of future dancers and their capacity to develop contemporary dance art – particularly at a time when a generation of seminal artists who also voice their desire regarding these matters is passing away. I use the question ‘What is a transmitter?’ and an alternative notion of ‘translator’, drawing on philosopher Paul Ricoeur, to highlight the complex role of dancer-performers, not only in the creation and performance of work(s) but also in maintaining a repertoire.

Responding to human full-body gestures embedded in motion data streams.

 This research created a neural-network enabled artificially intelligent performing agent that was able to learn to dance and recognise movement through a rehearsal and performance process with a human dancer. The agent exhibited emergent dance behaviour and successfully engaged in a live, semi-improvised dance performance with the human dancer.

Teaching a digital performing agent: artificial neural network and hidden Markov Model for recognising and performing dance movement

For a Digital Performing Agent to be able to perform live with a human dancer, it would be useful for the agent to be able to contextualize the movement the dancer is performing and to have a suitable movement vocabulary with which to contribute to the performance. In this paper we will discuss our research into the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) as a means of allowing a software agent to learn a shared vocabulary of movement from a dancer. The agent is able to use the learnt movements to form an internal representation of what the dancer is performing, allowing it to follow the dancer, generate movement sequences based on the dancer's current movement and dance independently of the dancer using a shared movement vocabulary. By combining the ANN with a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) the agent is able to recognize short full body movement phrases and respond when the dancer performs these phrases. We consider the relationship between the dancer and agent as a means of supporting the agent's learning and performance, rather than developing the agent's capability in a self-contained fashion.

Uses of the sampur in the halus (Refined) style of Yogyakarta court dance

In this essay I discuss how a familiar costume element in Javanese court dance, a long piece of patterned cloth known as the sampur, functions poetically through the ways it is used by the dancer. I elaborate on eight categories of use of the sampur, primarily from the point of view of a Western dancer first encountering the techniques of working with the scarf. I draw on scholars and other commentators to discuss the many dimensions of meaning embodied by these uses. The sampur emerges as a dance element rich in virtuosic potential and nuance, and resonant with numerous dimensions of cultural values.

Recognition: combining human interaction and a digital performing agent

Virtual and augmented environments are often dependent on human intervention for change to occur. However there are times when it would be advantageous for appropriate human-like activity to still occur when there are no humans present. In this paper, we describe the installation art piece Recognition, which uses the movement of human participants to effect change, and the movement of a performing agent when there are no humans present. The agent's Artificial Neural Network has learnt appropriate movements from a dancer and is able to generate suitable movement for the main avatar in the absence of human participants.

Touching space: Using motion capture and stereo projection to create a "virtual haptics" of dance

This paper describes the work of a group of artists in Australia who used real-time motion capture and 3D stereo projection to create a large-scale performance environment in which dancers seemed to "touch" the volume. This project re-versions Suzanne Langer's 1950s philosophy of dance as "virtual force" to realize the idea of a "virtual haptics" of dance that extends the dancer's physical agency literally across and through the surrounding spatial volume. The project presents a vision of interactive dance performance that "touches" space by visualizing kinematics as intentionality and agency. In doing so, we suggest the possibility of new kinds of human-computer interfaces that emphasize touch as embodied, nuanced agency that is mediated by the subtle qualities of whole-body movement, in addition to more goal-oriented, task-based gestures such as pointing or clicking. © 2010.

Technology as collaborator in somatic photographic practice

This article will address several areas of research. Firstly it will propose that a dance experience can translate into another discipline such as visual art. In my visual art practice I combine both photography, which is traditionally seen as a still medium, and performance in order to create a new form of embodiment. By acknowledging the inter-relationship between the body and the camera my project seeks to challenge a perceived separation between the disciplines. Fly Rhythm, an exhibition of 13 photographs and one video projection was conceived through a performative somatic process. I have developed the term ‘somatic photography’ to articulate subjective experiences in the context of my process of imaging movement in stillness. My thinking has been informed by visual art practice exploring movement and meaning using video and an older history of performance as a dancer and choreographer. I am primarily interested in movement initiated by a bodily response to light through still rather than moving imagery although artists such as Maya Deren whose films explore themes of time and space have influenced me. In my practice the term ‘somatic photography’ helps articulate the act of taking photographs, which is how meaning is being created rather than purely in the finished art works. The term somatic photography puts emphasis on the action of taking the image. Through using a custom made camera I was able to negotiate time and space as a dancer and create a visual drawing that talked to both choreography and fine art practice. This article engages with the following ideas: somatic photography, photography as choreography, body memory, ageing body, technology as collaborator, gallery interface, screen interface and movement.

Similar prevalence of acetabular labral tear in professional ballet dancers and sporting participants

OBJECTIVE: To compare the prevalence of acetabular labral tear in male and female professional ballet dancers with age-matched and sex-matched sporting participants and to determine the relationship to clinical findings and cartilage defects. DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Clinical and radiology practices. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-nine (98 hips) male and female professional ballet dancers (current and retired) with median age 30 years (range: 19-64 years) and 49 (98 hips) age-matched and sex-matched sporting participants. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES: Group (ballet or sports), sex, age, hip cartilage defects, history of hip pain, Hip and Groin Outcome Score, passive hip internal rotation (IR), and external rotation range of movement (ROM). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Labral tear identified with 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). RESULTS: Labral tears were identified in 51% of all 196 hips. The prevalence did not differ significantly between the ballet and sporting participants (P = 0.41) or between sexes (P = 0.34). Labral tear was not significantly associated with clinical measures, such as pain and function scores or rotation ROM (P > 0.01 for all). Pain provocation test using IR at 90° of hip flexion had excellent specificity [96%, 95% confidence intervals (CIs), 0.77%-0.998%] but poor sensitivity (50%, 95% CI, 0.26%-0.74%) for identifying labral tear in participants reporting hip pain. Older age and cartilage defect presence were independently associated with an increased risk of labral tear (both P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of labral tear in male and female professional ballet dancers was similar to a sporting population. Labral tears were not associated with clinical findings but were related to cartilage defects, independent of aging. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Caution is required when interpreting MRI findings as labral tear may not be the source of the ballet dancer's symptoms.

Emergent behaviour: learning from an artificially intelligent performing software agent

This research investigates the possibility for emergent choreographic behaviour to arise from the interactions between a human dancer and a learning, digital performing agent. The cognitive framework is extended through theories of distributed cognition to take into account the two interacting agents rather than a single agent and its environment. The Artificial Neural Network based performing agent demonstrated emergent dance behaviour when performing live with the human dancer. The agent was able to follow the dancer, create movement phrases based on what the dancer was performing and recognize short movement phrases, as a result of the interaction of the dancer’s motion captured movement data and the agent’s artificial neural network. This emergent behaviour was not explicitly programmed, but emerged as a result of the learning process and the interactions with the human dancer.

Louise Lightfoot and Ibetombi Devi: the second Manipuri Dance Tour of Australia, 1957

Manipur, a small state in the North-Eastern India, is traditionally regarded in the Indian classics and epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata as the home of gandharvas (the celestial dancers). Manipuri is one of the eleven dance styles of India that have incorporated various techniques mentioned in such ancient treatises as the Natya Shastra and Bharatarnava and has been placed by Sangeet Natak Akademi within ‘a common heritage’ of Indian classical dance forms (shastriya nritya): Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Sattriya, Chhau, Gaudiya Nritya, and Thang Ta. In the late-1950s Louise Lightfoot, the ‘Australian mother of Kathakali,’ visited Manipur to study and research different styles of Manipuri dance. There she met Ibetombi Devi, the daughter of a Manipuri Princess; she had started dancing at the age of four and by the age of twelve, she had become the only female dancer to perform the Meitei Pung Cholom on stage––a form of dance traditionally performed by Manipuri men accompanied by the beating of the pung (drum). In 1957, at the age of 20, Ibetombi became the first Manipuri female dancer to travel to Australia. This paper addresses Ibetombi Devi’s cross-cultural dance collaboration in Australia with her impresario, Louise Lightfoot, and the impression she and her co-dancer, Ananda Shivaram, made upon audiences.

Breathing in the atmosphere : affect and improvised dance performance

Whether conceptually or experientially atmospheres are hazy. Atmospheric situations often emerge without us being able to control or fully apprehend the conditions of their emergence. Atmospheres affect us not at the cognitive level but through embodiment - through the sensory capacities of our bodies and subsequent registers of affect. We feel atmospheres. Dance improvisers also feel what emerges in an improvisation, whether as the adrenalizing effect of the audience’s presence or because the dancer is immersed in their own movement (as the affect of interest). But dance improvisation is a situation in which atmospheres (and their affective impacts) emerge in unpredictable ways. Becoming attuned to ‘what is going on’ is an aspect of improvisational skill but improvised performance is also an exposure to ‘not knowing’ – not knowing what will happen (or how it will change), not knowing what motivated the movement. This exposure to ‘forces of not knowing’ is similar to many atmospheric situations in everyday life which we negotiate according to personal habits and personal levels of discernment. This performative paper picks up on Gernot Bőhme’s concept of a “new aesthetics” such that hazy atmospheres, and the uncertainty of where they come from, can be claimed as part of an aesthetic encounter. It also reflects on the act of breathing as a potential interface between aesthetic and scientific definitions of ‘atmosphere’.

Nijinsky review: Passion meets frailty in triumphant performance

His story is one of the most famous of the 20th century. As a dancer, he was a beacon of modernism, an icon of androgynous sensuality, and a performer with spectacular athletic prowess. As a choreographer, his experiments with movement – often harsh, primitive and contextualised within a nostalgia for Russia's pagan past – ended with a deconstruction of ballet as an art form, severed from its links to classical technique in favour of a movement seen as revolutionary.

Emergence

Emergence, by John McCormick, Steph Hutchison and an emerging performing agent, is a duet performed between a human dancer and an artificially intelligent performing agent. The work premiered on 1 August 2014 at Metanoia Theatre, Brunswick.