Telematic Dance and Live Coding

Α Collaborative Experiment in Cyber-Physical Performance and Education

Abstract

The present paper investigates aspects of technologically mediated embodied interaction in dance-driven music performance based on an educational collaboration project between a computer music researcher and a dance researcher. We relate the experiences we made during a collaboration with students between two undergraduate courses in Greece, using a system with low-cost wireless sensors to transmit dancers motion over the internet and create sound in real time at remote class locations (Corfu, Nafplion).  Questions explored are: How can we enable students to use sensors as sources of sound control? How can we enable the collaboration of students in groups to create performance structures?  How can we create presentation scenarios meaningful to the public? Furthermore, what are the technical and aesthetic functional constraints for such a collaboration and how can we deal with failure, when unexpected things happen within the constrained framework? We document our engagement with these questions in the course of the collaboration through code examples, diagrams, photographs and videos.  Work methods discussed include the study of Iannis Xenakis work on strategy in comparison with game based strategies in choreography, and the adaptation of existing group improvisation exercises in our telematic framework.