Authors:

 Santana, Ivani.

Title:

 Dance Interatives Technologies - a new body, a new dance.

Keywords:

 dance, body, new body
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Abstract:

 Dance is an art of the body. The body is revisited by artists of many media. As we near the end of the century, the body remains the primary material of art. In this digital era of interchanges between so many languages and modalities a re-examination of how the body deals with restlessnes and the nature of transformation. This digital era is rife with influences on the body and is equally shaped by the influence of the body on it. The interaction between body and technology has been explored in the world of artist such as the Australian Stelarc and Canadian Isabelle Choiniére who employ various media in creating their works. There is however, a lach of such investigation in the realm of
dance, not merely dance as performance like Stelarc and Choiniére, but in the entirety of its potentiality. I propose a consideration of the nature of how the body of this new age (or the "new body") exists, not simply as an illustrative, decorative or narrative instrument, but as an expression of the interrelations between technology and physicality, awash with the awesome growth of technology at this time. Sensors, micro-cameras, video, holography, software and hardware, lasers, scanners etc. have been employed in dance and thus coexist and co-evolve with the realm of dance. This is the emergence of a new dance,
a new kind of art. To understand the body of dance is to reconsider the body amidst this new era and to enter into a new paradigm and new concept of dance. Important choreographers such as American Merce Cunningham, employ software in their creative processes. Exalted artists installations such as Gary Hill´s collaboration with Meg Stuart who works in Belgium, on Splayed Mind Out. Director of the Frankfurt Ballet, William Forsythe integrated Michael Soup´s installation Binary Ballistic Ballet into his Eidos :Telos. This proposal sets forth two approaches:
1) The actual body is already a technological being: a new body.
2) Dance is interfacing with emerging technology creating new concepts and new expressions: a new dance.
Ivani Santana is a dancer, choreographer and dance researcher. She is in the Master´s Program of Communication and Semiotics and a member of the Center for Dance Studies (CED), coordinate by Helena Katz at Pontifícia Universidade Católica ,São Paulo. Her thesis project is about the congruence of dance and new technologies and interactive media. It encompasses both theoretical and pratical approaches. She researchs and works with sofwares like a Image/ine, BigEye, LifeForms, Max etc. In November of 1998 she participated as a guest artist for Vitae Foundation to represent Brazil in the V Seminar on Experimental Digital
Techniques in Multimedia and the Internet in Bariloche, Argentina. In 1988 she participated in the performance Festarola, directed by Célia Gouvea, wich was awarded Best Concept and Best Visual Effect by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics. Granted a scholarship by
Cunningham Project , from CED, she has taken pratical and theoretical courses studying the work of the American choreographer under the auspices of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation - NY, Center for Dance Studies and SESC – SP, with co-ordination by Gicia Amorim. Ivani Santana also gives lectures presenting the findings of her research into the
interactions of dance and technology. Her most recent works of interactive technological dance were ...entremeios... (conception, choreography, interpretation and, with colaboration of Fernando Iazzetta, the multimidia project) WU (conception, choreography and interpretation, choreography colaboration and inrterpretation by Gicia Amorim) in 1998 and DRU (conception, choreography, interpretation, co-responsability Rachel Zuanon and multimidia colaboration Sciarts) in 1997, wich was created especially for Arte&Tecnologia, an event focussed on new media sponsored by Instituto Itaú Cultural. She has studied with renowned Brazilian professionals such as Marcos Verzani, Klauss Vianna, Zélia Monteiro, Sonia Mota, Ruth Rachou, Célia Gouvea, and others. She has participated in the international workshops with Michael Clark, Stephen Petronio, Dominique Bagouet, Merce Cunningham, Sasha Waltz, Pina Bausch and others. She toured Japan in 1992 and 1995 presenting Brazilian folkloric dances.