Dance thinking and technology might be a strange mix at first glance. Yet that is what some troupes are planning to combine in performances scheduled for March in Chicago. The troupes plan to include visual art, technology, science, artificial intelligence and cognitive thinking as elements in their dance performances.
The Seldoms will present “Marchland” at the Museum of Contemporary Art during March 12 to 14. This work reportedly explores endurance, border/boundary and contested spaces. It is described as very high energy, frantic, fast paced, and a bit relentless.
The Wayne McGregor/Random Dance company incorporates animation, digital film, 3-D architecture, electronic sound and virtual dancers into their performances. They present the “ENTITY” at The Dance Center. The work is said to be inspired by the connection between the mental and the physical. Coldplay and Massive Attack collaborator Jon Hopkins and composer Joby Talbo has created a soundscape for the performance.
McGregor reportedly consulted persons working in cognitive science, including psychology, neurosciences, linguistics, human- computer interaction and robotics while coming up with ENTITY. Random Dance, the other partner, has a research department of the company, R-Research. According to the coordinator of R-Research, it is possible to discover stuff in dancemaking that informs science, and stuff in science that informs dancemaking.
Read the news at: Windy City Media Group.
