Critical Writing Index

Dance and Media Technologies

by Johannes H. Birringer

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Jan. 2002, v. 24, no. 1, pp. 84-93

Since the 1980s, but especially in last decade of the 20th century, performers, choreographers, and media artists have been experimenting and bringing together dance and new technologies. As the 21st century began, the relationship between dance, choreography and technologies such as video projection grew ever stronger and conventional approaches started to feel inadequate to artists in these fields. The author explores how technology has drastically changed "bodily boundaries and spatial realities," and traces the relationship between humans and machines. The author also questions how the necessity of a real time and space of dance can be negotiated with the new tendency to use networking technologies in performance. The article concludes with the sentiment that performance has become a multimedia process, and that collaborations between artists and engineers will likely become more and more prevalent.

ITEM 2002.209 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

The Secret Project – half/angel

Biped – Paul Kaiser

Shelley Eshkar

Merce Cunningham

Ghostcatching – Paul Kaiser

Shelley Eshkar

Bill T. Jones

Escape Velocity – Australian Company in Space