Open State

An ‘intelligent’ platform to enable collaboration between international disabled and non-disabled dancers spanning Japan and UK

The research originates an ‘intelligent’ platform to enable collaboration between international disabled and non-disabled dancers spanning Japan and UK. Using audio sensors and video conferencing designed to capture sonic data, I extended improvisational experiences and created a data-specific soundscape. A digital environment, connecting multicultural performers was created through a hybridized multimedia participation.

Rather than the ‘classical’ model of mute bodies and blank spaces upon which the choreographer works (Melrose & Butcher 2005), the project advanced a technology-augmented interface that extended collaborative trajectories through synchronized virtual exchange.

Sounds made by performers became the emergent medium for the data-specific soundscape. Disabled dancers were able to interact within this digitally traversable interface, producing sounds not normally registered whilst performing. Dancers’ articulations were processed in Praat, a software tool commonly used by linguists to analyse the phonetics of speech. A script was written to record the intensity of audio signal and frequency of sounds ranging in pitch between 75 to 300 Hertz. Intensity and frequency values within this range were sampled at a rate of 100 Hz. Numeric information was translated into sonic values using Pure Data by patching a sine wave oscillator to the data sets.

Adam Benjamin, choreographer, created a dance performance developed through this hybrid interaction and data-specific soundscape. Open State received funding from Art and Culture Promotion Fund, Arts Council Tokyo & Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Premiered at Tokyo Art Centre, Japan, 2015 and The House, Plymouth, 2017.

Sequential performance in UK, peer and audience feedback and book chapter.

Dissemination

2015: Premiered Tokyo Art Centre, Japan. Funding: Art and Culture Promotion Fund, Arts Council Tokyo, Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
2017: The House, Plymouth UK.
Emmett, M. Benjamin, A. (2018) Event Spaces of Infinite Perspective: Digital Echoes: Spaces for Intangible and Performance-based Cultural Heritage, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.