New Telematic Technologies for Remote Creation, Rehearsal and Performance of Choreographic Work

A Goldsmiths based AHRC funded project within the ‘Tackling the Impact of COVID-19’ UKRI call. In collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore, Akram Khan Dance Company, and Target3D. In this experimental test session recorded in July 2020, two dancers, one in London, and one in Singapore, are dancing together, but virtually, each wearing an inertial sensor motion capture system. Live and pre-captured dance data was streamed from a dancer in a similar studio space in LASALLE college in Singapore, some 6700 miles away, with barely noticeable delay or latency. Although with occasional technical glitches, including magnetic interference with the suit, this raw footage operates as proof of concept, and a suggestion of what is to come in the next iteration of our research. We position this research practice within a historical and theoretical problematic of networked or ‘distributed performance’ and of telepresence, telematics, and virtuality in dance practice. It is not about recreating the live experience – of ‘being there’ – but rather finding forms of meaningful connection, engaged interest and attention in a digital medium which is decisively and qualitatively different.