[dance-tech] Re: repertory worlds

Hey Nick,

All well put.
Would be cool if there was a place like that for the D&T world. A place where one could go to rent or borrow an old Powerbook running OS 8 or 9 or a Laserdisc player or VCR or MidiDancer or Sensor Beam or Diem Digital Dance Suit or Matel Power Glove or use a 1.0 version of a particular piece of software. Kind of a working museum. 

Agreed. (By the way, does anyone want a Xybernaut wearable computer?)
Get it to the museum my good man!! We'll hang it next to the MidiDancer. Oh, wait we don't have a museum yet. Tee hee.
But, still the bigger question is where is the call to perform these older work? Who wants to see them now? 

I think this is an important question.
While choreography can sometimes get obsessed with newness, there is still appeal in older repertory pieces, especially in the context of their age and lineage. So why should there be little call for old dance-tech pieces? I wonder whether a factor might be that their appeal is in technical novelty (with an obviously short shelf-life) rather than artistic content.
The above comment makes me think of the Limon company, which is now a sort of Rep company. They perform the historical works of Jose Limon, which are decades old, along side contemporary works by Limon alum or other nearly related young choreographers. I like this concept. While it keeps the history of a founder in the present, the company dancers can still grow and be challenged by new work. So, is this possible in the (now defunct ) Dance & Technology genre? Does it take a special festival or a long standing company? Maybe it would be like Troika Ranch performing our works from 1994 - 2007 and then being a body of performers for younger makers to make work on. The problem with this idea is that I am not yet dead. And so, I still have work to make. Maybe after Mark and I are dead this is what we will do with Troika Ranch.
I hate to say it but I think the need for a special Dance & Technology genre is over. 

Fantastic.
We don't have a genre for Dance Where The Dancers Wear Blue, or Dance Where The Lights Are On Side Stands, so why do we have a genre for Dance Where Technology Is Used? Who knows, perhaps Dance/Technology will mature to the stage that the technology is subsumed, and talking about dance with sensors will make as much sense as talking about dance with par cans. 

Exactament! And, while we are at it, can we get rid of Post-Modernism too!


To catch up with Johannes:
case in point: Richard Siegal: ------ did anyone see his concert in New York? i would love to hear some comments and reactions here on our list, do you know his work?
I refuse the register with the NY Times online as a matter of principle, so all I can go off is the video excerpt on Richard's web site. I don't know much about his technology work - when I worked with him it was for "pure" dance - but Richard was one of the principal dancers in Forsythe's KAMMER KAMMER, which dates from (I think) 2000, and was very technology-heavy ... but was never considered or described as a dance technology piece. It was a work of dance theatre. End of.
I did not go see Richard this weekend, even though I could have. I am sorry that I missed it but I am taking a little time off from seeing anything right now. But, hence the comment about Kammer/Kammer is exactly what I hope for all of us D&Ter's. Just make the work using whatever methods you use and promote it's concept/content rather then it's gizmo's. Nuff said.
(When I was working with Michael Klien in Frankfurt back in 2002, sharing a stage with Kammer Kammer in fact, we had a short duet where the choreography was computer mediated using custom software. We went to great pains to completely hide the technology from the audience; if the dance was regarded and appreciated as a choreographic work with no knowledge of the technology, we considered that a result.)
Was this the kind of wrap around score program that was kind of like a musical score with different colors that represented different phrase material...or something to that effect? I remember talking with you and Michael about this years ago at Sadler's Wells...software for dancers maybe? Or maybe that was something earlier? Our current piece Loop Diver uses the computer ad infinitum to make the looped movement material, sound and imagery but up to now has no "interactivity" and some of our long time fans asked - "where is the technology". Well, frankly it was everywhere just not visible in the blinky lights sort of way. 

cheers,
Dawn



        -- N.


Nick Rothwell / Cassiel.com Limited
www.cassiel.com
www.myspace.com/cassieldotcom
www.last.fm/music/cassiel
www.reverbnation.com/cassiel
www.linkedin.com/in/cassiel
www.loadbang.net



--
--------------------
Dawn Stoppiello
Executive Director
Artistic Co-Director
Troika Ranch
www.troikaranch.org
--------------------
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is. --- Yogi Berra

Other related posts: