Dance, technology and the material mutations of rhythm

• Main Author: Portanova, Stamatia C.
• Published: University of East London 2006
• Subjects: 551.5
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.504853

The object of this thesis is the relation between dance and technology in all its different aspects, i. e. video-dance. Motion Capture, the Dance Forms choreographic software, interactive and Internet dance. The aim of the project is to take the analysis of the dance/technology relation beyond the notions of conscious imitation, resemblance and representation presupposed by structuralist and post-structuralist readings of the `mediatised' dance-text, and beyond the subjective perceptual/performative mechanisms explained by phenomenology. In order to avoid this textual/phenomenological impasse, I will move the analytical focus on the materiality of the body, perception and movement, as a common and undifferentiated field of emergence in which specific corpo-realities and positions emerge. This thesis will deploy a new methodology for the exploration of the dance/technology link, mapping the processes of rhythmic material transmission which link dancing human bodies and technical machines. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. this project will challenge the centrality attributed by phenomenology to the human body. by considering it as only one of the different components of a material process of rhythmic interchange in which all elements (human bodies of dancers and spectators. computers, screens and other technical machines) share the same rhythmic dimension. The trans-codification of rhythm and dance will be explored at three different levels: physical, cultural, technical. Nevertheless, the three analytical levels will not be considered as separate, autonomous and hierarchical fields but as coexistent layers interconnected by a common ground. The purpose of this process of stratification can be identified then with the conceptualisation of a material and abstract rhythmicity (a field of emergence in scientific, physical terms, or an immanent plane in philosophical terms) which is at the basis of all different dance/technology formations.