The world of dance is growing. Choreographers are incorporating new technologies into their work, using sensors, projected images, and multimedia to create rich imagery with live dance performance. For several years, Professors Douglas Hamby and Carol Hess have been collaborating with artists from other disciplines who work with a variety of technologies.

"We use technology in many ways," says Hess. "In much of my work, I use a live video feed; as the dancers perform, their movement is captured through a camera and projected onto a screen. This enables the audience to view the dance from different perspectives as it is being performed."

Professor Hamby has worked with the mechanical engineering department to design a six-legged dancing robot that could perform his choreography. Maurice the robot has performed on stage at UMBC and many other venues. Also, Professor Hamby has collaborated with sound and video artists Timothy Nohe and Steve Bradley to create new technology-based choreography for the stage.

New Course in Dance and Technology

DANC 340 Dance and Technology, was first taught in the spring of 2002, and is required for students working toward a B.A. in Dance. Through this course, dance majors gain a higher level of technological literacy. The course introduces students to contemporary approaches to documenting and preserving the art of dance as well as to creating choreographic methods that utilize cameras, sensors and interactivity.

 

Streaming on the Internet

Dance students have participated in faculty research involving real-time online performance. In 2002, several students had the opportunity to perform in Four Gestures, a multidisciplinary work produced by UMBC's Streaming Umbrella Group, a collective of artists dedicated to conceiving and producing work for presentation on the World Wide Web. The performance was streamed from the UMBC TV Studio to the University of Colorado at Boulder, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and abroad, as a one-way program over Internet2.

Students also performed their work in TIMEFORMS, an All Night Event Marathon netcast from UMBC's concreteSTREAM. This event included short works by faculty, undergraduate and graduate students from the departments of Visual Arts and Dance. Other participants were: UCLA Department of Design/New Media Arts and Hypermedia Studio, University of California Santa Barbara Media Arts and Technology Program, Net Culture Club, Zagreb, Croatia, and Kazushi Mukaiyama, Kobe, Japan.

In Spring, 2003, Students from UMBC's departments of Dance and Visual Arts collaborated with students from Johns Hopkins University's writing program to create a multimedia performance entitled Landscapes, that was streamed over Internet2. UMBC students' videos, sound projects, and dances were mixed and combined with live poetry readings from JHU. To view a short feature about the project, visit www.umbc.edu/sug/jhu/index.html.