Dance is an art form that integrates bodily and mental forms of thinking within its creative process. In contemporary dance, choreographers and dancers employ a wide diversity of creation techniques, many of which are highly idiosyncratic. A large body of knowledge that choreographers and dancers tap into is implicit and tacit. This type of knowledge is rarely referred to and communicated through spoken or written language. This makes it difficult for artists and researchers who are not directly involved in dance practice to gain an understanding for the creative processes that form part of the realisation of a dance piece. Fortunately, several choreographers have taken the initiative to disseminate their creative practice for a wider audience. In the context of the E2-Create project, the acquisition of insights into the embodied creation techniques of dancers and choreographers plays an important role, since it forms an important pre-requisite for abstracting and formalising some of these techniques and render them accessible for algorithmic and generative forms of art.
Synchronous Objects
Synchronous Objects is pioneering project organised by choreographer Willian Forsythe. Based on a case study of Forsythe’s piece “One Flat Thing, reproduced”, the project explores if choreography can manifest through other forms than the human body. Synchronous Objects places an emphasis on the complex counterpoint technique that Forsythe and his dancers employ in the piece. This technique is documented and made available for experimentation through graphical visualisation and generative algorithms. Generative algorithms such as the CounterPoint Tool are are particularly interesting in the context of the E2-Create project since they highlight how choreographic creation techniques can be adapted for computer simulation.
Online Scores
The MotionBank team at the University of Applied Research, Mainz has continued Forsythe’s approach of documenting choreographic practice through digital media but applied it to the work of additional choreographers. These documentations are available as Online Scores. So far, the following Online Scores have been created:
- Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion – Seven Duets
- Deborah Hay – Using the Sky
- Bebe Miller and Thomas Hauert – TWO
- Taneli Törmä – Between Us
Several Online Scores integrate generative tools to highlight some of the creation techniques the choreographers employ. In the case of “Seven Duets”, these are graphical animations that are controlled by a patterning language that is related to the score-based performance directives employed by Burrows and Fargion. In the case of “TWO”, these are amorphous shapes created by a mass-spring simulation that deform and intersect with each other and thereby illustrate the Impulse technique of Hauert.
Of interest are also two online tools developed and maintained by MotionBank that facilitate the documentation of choreographic practice. Piecemaker is an annotation tool to enrich digital media such as video or motion capture with textual information. Since many choreographers employ video recording in the creative process, textual annotation lends itself as technique to reflect on and extend the information content of these recordings. Mosys is a companion tool for Piecemaker and provides the possibility to organise and juxtapose different media including Piecemaker annotations in a layout that can be later published as website.
Choreographic Coding Labs
The Choreographic Coding Labs (CCL) are a series of workshops that have been initiated by MotionBank. The CCL format offers unique opportunities of exchange and collaboration for “code savvy” artists who are interested in translating aspects of choreography and dance into digital form or in applying choreographic thinking in their own practice. A core aspect of a CCL are encounters between the workshop participants and professional dancers and/or choreographers. The latter offer presentations that shed some light on specific aspects of their creative practice. Two CCLs were organised as part of the E2-Create project. One CCL took place in Berlin at the Universität der Künste in January 2022. The other CCL took place in Chatham in the art space of the two artists Aoi Nakamura and Esteban Fourmi in July 2022.
Shibui Collective – Artificial Intimacy
E2-Create, dance company Shibui Collective, and computer musician Ephraim Wegner have collaborated in the artistic research project “Artificial Intimacy”. This project explores how dancer Emi Miyoshi can enter into a dialogue with a digital avatar. The movement of the dancer serves as starting material from which a media representation of an avatar is created. Both dancer and avatar are learning. The avatar learns its behaviours from previously recorded movements of several dancers. The dancer learns to read, respond to, and influence the avatar’s movements. Synthetic music and images are created in real time based on the avatar’s activities and the emotional state of the dancer. The creative process for Artificial Intimacy is documented on the website http://artificial-intimacy.dance/.
Instituto Stocos – Embodied Machine
As one of the main outcomes of the E2-Create project, the dance company Instituto Stocos and design studio Bui Studio have collaborated on the realisation of a dance piece entitled “Embodied Machine”. The creative process that lead to the realisation of this piece focuses on the role of movement qualities and how these qualities can be expressed not only through the human body but also through music and light. The creative process is currently being documented as an Online Score. A link will be provided here as soon as soon as the Online Score is available as website.