Re: hello

Scott deLahunta (sdela@ahk.nl)
Tue, 20 May 1997 09:32:08 +0200

Hello Cynthia,

At 10:39 PM 5/18/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I came in on the middle of your discussion regarding publishing parts of
>the conversations, do I have that right? I just want to reassure you
>that I have no intentions of doing that.

This discussion did not get too far -- which may be an indication of its
relative importance to people. On the other hand, there are so many threads
going on here right now on the dance-tech list, I'm not surprised that it
hasn't been picked up on. Interestingly, I have begun to respond to threads
recently wherever I happen to join them... which has rather dubious
repercussions in terms of how we (as a community) might develop various sets
of ideas, but this is another issue. Generally speaking, I suppose it's wise
to contact the author of a particular post if you are interested in
'publishing it'. But, of course, you are suggesting individual email
interviews which is different -- if you get any interesting interviews, Mark
and I would be interested in publishing them in the critical theory section
of the 'dance and technology zone'.

>One thing I would like someone to tell me ---- how is that ballet is not
>as involved in dance and computers as modern is? The obvious reason is
>in restaging the classics computers would not be needed or wanted I
>suppose, but for ballet to advance it must accept new technology. How do
>you think computers can be applied to ballet?

Firstly, I don't think it is necessarily useful to automatically link
'advances', as in progress, in any of the arts to new technology. We, in the
arts, are in a position to maintain a critical perspective on developments
which are so driven by the mass media and capitalist/ consumer mentality.
What about taking a position of resistance to 'advances in new technologies'
?? But, to respond very briefly to one of your questions -- why is it that
ballet is not involved in dance and computers as modern is? In my opinion
there is no one particular area of dance where there is more attention or
less attention to developments in digital and media technologies -- at
present there are only individual artists working in these areas who more or
less may represent particular dance genres... and often their research is
not necessarily limited to that dance genre - the issues they are dealing
with would be similar across the board.

William Forsyth with the Frankfurt Ballet has been making forays into
digital technologies with his CD-ROM project (improvisation technologies)
which is a very fine multi-media 'textbook' demonstrating his working/
training methods.

>Is there anyone out there doing a project on dance technique and the
>computer? How could something like this benefit teachers in dance
>schools?

Personally, I'm nervous about linking some of these things to pedagogy, yet.
As mark suggested -- I would say you should contact Bedford Interactive --
you can find some info about them on the 'artist links' at the 'dance and
technology zone' (http://www.art.net/~dtz). There may be some other people
listed in that section you would like to contact directly.

Scott
----------------------------------|
Scott deLahunta and Susan Rethorst
Writing Research Associates, NL
Sarphatipark 26-3, 1072 PB Amsterdam, NL
tel: +31 (0)20 662 1736
fax: +31 (0)20 470 1558
email: sdela@ahk.nl
http://huizen.dds.nl/~sdela/wra (WRITING RESEARCH ASSOCIATES)
http://www.art.net/~dtz (DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY ZONE )