Post-show: ATHE Paper

Talkback , Interdisciplinary Paper, Closing Thoughts , Main

Interdisciplinary Digital Collaboration
Presented at ATHE Summer 2006
By Nadja Masura

At its core, theatre is an interdisciplinary art. Multimedia and other presentational digital technologies blend multiple media and recombine and manipulate modes of expression as flexible data. The two forms seem destine to be joined together (arts and technology) in the digital performance. As a scholar and a theorist of Digital Theatre I have followed the conviction that theory must go hand in hand with practice. Believing that one cannot know this evolving field without experiencing its inherent hurdles and sublime potentials, I have made it part of my education to engage in hands-on training and performance. An essential part of this ongoing process consists of working with (and learning from) artists and technologists from multiple institutions and disciplines.

Both challenging and creative opportunities have emerged from working within three interdisciplinary performance communities. Each of these experiences has taught me the subtle difficulties of varied (disciplinarily shaped) perceptions and the overall value of working across disciplines and integrating technology and the arts. I will briefly discuss the experience of being in an ‘outsider discipline’; negotiating the dominance of Dance Technology over Theatre in digital performance technology training environments (at SDAT at ASU and Troika Ranch workshops). Then I will talk about my experiences working for three years with the robust and continually evolving online performance community Art Grid, and the Interplay series a (fairly) open-source process of creating performance online between multiple disciplines and universities. The majority of the paper will be discussing my effort to integrate the ideas and skills gathered from these experiences into a local collaboration, Elements. As facilitator of the Digital Performance Group I will share my insights into our egalitarian approach to developing new material, and actualize our common goal to create a local model for mediated interdisciplinary collaboration.

Dance Tech:
For various reasons, the discipline of Dance, rather than Theatre has, in general, more enthusiastically embraced the integration of digital technologies into performance. When exploring in depth the Digital Performance Archive, doing independent online searches, or looking for digital performance technology training, there tend to be a greater number of Dance pieces and venues over Theatre works. While exceptions to the dominance of Dance (technology) exist (Saltz at University Georgia, Reaney at U. Kansas, GSRT, George Coates, etc), the great enthusiasm of the international dance community to accept technology into their processes can be seen through the strength (seen in the many years of active conversation) of the Dance-tech list-serve (and website) as an often referenced and emulated resource. People such as Johannes Baranger, Isabella Jenchies, Yacov Sharir, Lisa Naugle, Donn Stopello, Scott Delahunta, and many others make announcements, ask questions, engage in conversations, and form a dispersed vital network through dialogue. This unparalleled resource was referred to me time and again, when I sought practical training in performance technology.

In my experience, workshop training was not available outside of Dance. Fellow theatre and technology enthusiast Kathryn Farley introduced me to Troika Ranch’s LIVE I sadora Workshop. In July of 2003, I participated in the two week workshop at New York’s Dance Space. Of a group of a dozen or so people, two were of video or art backgrounds, two of us were of a theatre background, and the majority were dancers (ranging from Hip-hop & break dancing to Tango). For those of us who were not dancers, the lessons in the program were not as easily paired with the implementation of the practical aspect of the course. At times I felt out of my element, unsure how to move through space in a way which would both activate the media and stimulate some kind of (imposed) sense of aesthetics I was still grasping at. In short, I dealt with the unease of not being a dancer in a room full of people who spoke the language of the body fluently and communicated in a sort of intuited physical short-hand. This language disconnect, at times carried over into the other aspects of the training. A general sense of frustration stemmed from feeling out of my element (without a script, a narrative, a setting, and idea to start from) the double-whammy of not speaking dance, bled into a novice’s efforts with a new program.

This is not to say that the workshop was not a valuable experience, or that Dawn and Mark didn’t do wonderful job introducing the tools, quite the contrary. The New York experience was exhilarating. I would greatly encourage others to step outside their element, to breathe a new air and to risk creativity outside in new environment their comfort boundaries. Others in the workshop dealt with this same uncertainty toward dance in different ways, by channeling their demonstrations toward ongoing visual arts projects, or employing dancers to walk through their midi-triggered patches for them. While we could clearly see the application of midi-triggers to performance, each of us needed to decide how to physically place our selves in relation (both physically and in terms of performance roles) to our (midi-triggered) media. This would be the first of many experiences in which I needed to position myself (as a performer/technician) in relation to movement and media.

In the summer of 2004, I again sought training in digital performance technology, and again I was steered to a dance program, this time ASU’s Summer Dance And Technology workshop (SDAT 2004). Here I met a wide variety of people, only one of which also at the New York workshop, was involved with theatre. The group was split into two groups: one working with Yacov Sharir on creating 3D animations in 3D Max and Poser, and the other learning midi-Max/Soft VNS with John Mitchell. (As it worked out, half of us become content creators and the other half content manipulators.) In the afternoon we reconvened and explored creating group mini-performances in the ASU’s (wonderful) active theater space (which consisted of multiple projectors, cameras which fed into Soft VSN patches which interpreted areas of the stage as hot-shots triggering media manipulated by Max patches written by the students).

This time I approached my discomfort of being in an outsider discipline (the non-dominant mode of communication) head on. I announced upfront, “I am not a dancer.” And to my delight and surprise, through the ongoing gentle (no-pressure) encouragement of Yacov and fellow participants in group work, became comfortable with being a “mover.” A simple shift in language freed me from the (self-imposed) pressure of being a non-dancer among the graceful. This simple term (along with my added comfort which came with previous program experience and my accumulated video media), gave me the much needed freedom to make mistakes, and allowed me to experience performing with media as an equal participant in the workshop process. Since this workshop, I have found myself on both sides of the camera/computer in online performances (especially with Interplay), and I always refer to myself as a mover or a performer (even if what I am doing could be likened to dance).

Interplay:
The Art (on the Grid Community) began in 2002, and I was introduced to them through open to the general public online meetings and a happening-like performance Networked Touch (NAME of GUY) in which all were invited to participate by broadcasting their hands to be occasionally combined into one stream (thus touching virtually). The nature of the community is open; open to new members, new ideas, experimentation and collaboration. Calls for proposals go out on the list-serve, thoughts become ideas which become performances through meetings, emails, and practice. Everyone (with a high-speed internet connection) can participate, at points it seems to reach an almost utopian ideal.

The Interplay performance process is directed and created by Jimmy Miklavcic and Beth Miklavcic through Another Language, and Utah Center for High Computing. Jimmy is the central pivot and organizing force, in addition to creating the theatre (modeled) venue of multiple Access Grid online meeting rooms, he also creates the over-all outline or dramaturgy of performance, oversees technology problem-solving conversations between various sites, and conducts the final audio-visual mix. Over time, the Interplay processes is (sadly) becoming more regulated as more institutions want to join. Initially there were three sites participating (Alaska, Utah, MD), later this grew to include six institutions (including Boston University, The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, The Center for High Performance Computing at the University of Utah, The National Research Council, Ottawa, Canada, and The University of Maryland) and another six (including The Envision Center, Purdue University; The University of Montana; The Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois, Chicago; and Ryerson University). Both the process and the product are unique outgrowths of the collaborative online environment (the Access Grid). Because each site responds to the call for participants by interpreting the theme in their own way (with various artistic and technology resources available to them), the mixture of disciplines is a varied as the members present. Over the past three years I participated in several performances with the Art Grid community including Interplay: Hallucinations, Loose Minds In a Box, and Dancing on the Banks of Packet Creek, and Outside/In (a short theatrical piece which I wrote and directed). With the exception of the last piece, each of them has been truly an interdisciplinary work more akin to audio/visual collage than remaining any one discipline.

The mix itself (along with other multiple performance video streams which can be viewed by numerous online or gathered ‘local” audiences) is different each time. Because no one audience (or performance venue) can view the same thing or totality of the event , and the combined feed or main-mix is manually improvised, each viewing varies highlighting different aspects of the total performance. One night one scene may heavily feature images from one site, and in the next moment—another. Images of giant books, a cellist and a zen garden, images of water, faces overlap with places and bodies fill with other forms and places, hands swimming through hamburgers, rhythms from Alaska, graceful animations of cool-blue floating boxes, people swimming through space, dancers triggering words hundreds of miles away, virtual reality environments---all of these happen and combine in a seemingly random, fluctuating flow. It is exhausting to perform and to watch. But it is also exhilarating. Interplay stretches the audience to watch. However, as Jimmy likes to say, “there is no way you can see the whole thing.”

performers to perform (gauging movements and reactions in relation to mediated partners, and elements) and technicians/media creators to create and facilitate new interactions.

Through technology disciplines combine: a sculptor in Utah, a cellist in Boston, percussionists in Alaska, visual artists working with Animation or video (in Illinois, Alaska, MD) violinist/programmer in Montana, writer/ theatre performers in Maryland and Utah, and dancers/movers in multiple states. We meet, discuss, rehearse, and perform through the Access Grid and our art and experience of art-making is shaped by the individuals which make-up the collective process. It is truly Mediated Interdisciplinary Collaboration in the fullest (most chaotic) and richest sense.

Elements:
The idea for creating the Digital Performance Group, a meeting group or connection/networking entity for interdisciplinary collaboration to occur between various artists and performers working with or interested in utilizing technology for art-making/performance dispersed across our campus, came from the impression made upon me by Georgia’s Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE). We began meeting at MITH (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, an interdisciplinary and somewhat ethereal entity focusing on supporting the creation of online research and scholarship) in 2002. In the spring of 2003 I pulled together various loose members around the idea of putting together a show.

“The Digital Performance Group has created a framing structure for a new work which will allow individual artistic and technical talents from multiple disciplines to combine to create innovative and dynamic imaginings. The piece is based on the idea that technology can be used as a positive conduit or connection between humans and nature (the environment), as well as each other (and perhaps within themselves). Technology, and the passage of information, either through human performance or a computer’s digital processor, gives humans the ability to interpret the world around us (factually, poetically, globally, even personally). The goal of the Digital Performance Group is twofold: to create a collaborative live/media performance, and to establish a forum for creative works involving new technologies. Our project will be the first of its kind at the University of Maryland: a media-integrated performance combining the research and creative contributions of faculty and students from diverse disciplines of the university.”

Because we were operating outside the boundaries of any one discipline as a truly interdisciplinary collaboration, we were outside the safety of departmental support and working beyond any single-discipline creative models. On the positive side, this meant that we were free to create new work with our potentially sizable combined artistic/technological human resources, however we faced the challenges of operating outside the system. Without a firm long-term departmental sponsor we faced difficulties of lack of funding, performance space, and to some degree physical and technology support. The project was originally funneled through a Theatre Department program for new works but met with active resistance (due to our inclusion of technology), which lead us to the Dance Department who became our erstwhile supporters, offering us a harbor in their beautiful performance space and a generous audience for our two performances.

Because of our general lack of funding and our on going commitment to “put on a show” (a la Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland – a barn and some paint ) we relied on our collective skills and pooled technology to produce something new for our college community. Each member brought with them life experience, aesthetic backgrounds, media and whenever possible our own equipment. We acted as our own technical staff before and during production (again onstage and offstage personalities mingled, but less so than Interplay productions which consisted of fewer members locally).

Why did we do it? Because it needed to be done. Thus far, with the exception of a few graduating MFA dance student projects, the Center had not seen a campus produced technology integrated performance, and certainly nothing that depended so highly on interdisciplinary at its core. We had graduate students, faculty and staff involved from Art, Dance, Music and Theatre. After the initial push to form our core group, I set about creating a group dynamic and artistic framework to support artistic and technological exploration between members. With the initial help of a planning committee, we came up with a system of weekly meetings and informal sub-groups for scene production. I also created a blog to further idea-sharing online.

Using the framework of four elements (air, earth, fire, and water) I hoped to allow members to choose which aesthetic ideas moved them while encouraging specific technologies to be utilized within the course of the production. The idea was to create a technology performance (variety-like sampler) which would both help educate the performing arts about the possibility and ability to use technology in performance, allow performers and technologists to explore creating together, and have underlying artistic merit and positive message about the meeting of technology and humanity.

[The scene groups broke down into Air (an abstract piece steered by Moira Jackson, with midi work by Brandon Morse, and music/media by Paul Jackson), Earth (a collaboratively scripted work on embodied place or place memory between myself, Moira Jackson, Aaron Tobiason, and Beth and Jimmy Miklavcic via the Access Grid, with accompanying animation by Brandon Morse and Aaron Tobiason), Fire (politically charged dance-theatre piece written and choreographed by political activist Karen Bradley with midi triggers by Brandon Morse and video by Aaron Tobiason, Paul Jackson and myself and sound by Mike Sparrow), and Water (an ecologically-minded conclusion dance/choreographed by GIRL?/Karen with my edited video of water mixed with live performance via Brandon and Paul and set to sound by Mike Sparrow). ]

The process of blogging and weekly meetings continue throughout the fall semester as members pulled together media and formulated ideas for their scenes. Each scene moved at its own pace. In addition to posting links, images and ideas on the blog, the Earth scene used the space to write, read each other’s works to compose similar segments and begin editing our individual writings into a script. The majority of the assembly work and creative (as well as time consuming process) of developing the scenes in relation to real bodies, triggers, and space and refining media occurred before the performance in our three week workshop during the winter term.

Scheduling was difficult, and many times I had the feeling that I was ‘herding cats.’ Paul and I met daily and I did my best to schedule the rest of the groups members to overlap (the goal of committed rehearsals 10-2 was unrealistic given the last minute commitments of many of those involved) so that work moved forward and essential group work was done several times a week while individuals came in with media sometimes daily. Sometimes it was a mater of checking that people were aware of who was in the room with them (thus available to work on some aspect of on scene or another) and starting them off working together, in other cases it was a mater of checking on the progress of necessary media clips or other elements of production (even acting as a courier if necessary). Space was a also challenge. It took us several days to set-up the Dance Theatre as a functional interactive space (a small scale version of ASU, no small feat). Due to availability we then had to move to a rehearsal room, and later set up again in the Theatre for the performance.

But perhaps the most challenging aspect of the process was the various levels of expectation and experience each members brought to the product (from their varying disciplines and modes of working). As creative individuals from different disciplines with different levels of experience working with technology or performance each of us came with unique perspectives and blind spots. As someone who knew (through seeing the work of others, but not through experience) that this type of project was possible, I had to trust in our ability to pull this off, when none of us had tried anything quite like it before. The biggest stumbling blocks came when disciplines collided. We had an artist/technologist who was used to working alone to create installations and wanted specific instructions as to what our desired effect for the technology would be so that he could build them and leave to do his own work (which became almost impossibility as the performance week neared---as most performers are used to having a final run week). On the opposite side of the continuum we had a choreographer who had no idea what the technology was capable of and needed to see media before she felt able to choreograph. We had a dance theatre practitioner who needed to feel her way through her work and was unable to communicate the entirety of the idea and at the other end a theatre-theatre colleague who had an extremely low tolerance for ambiguity and needed the structure of a dramatic text and exact directions. And in the middle of this we had a calm but over-committed (therefore non-present) musician, a group of dancers and online participants to schedule---and add to that technology factor, a temporal hornet’s nest.

“Brandon walking into the circle of dancers working w/Karen on choreography to test tap tile—nonplussed “Brandon joins the dance” (different ideas of space/working).”

My job was just to hold onto the belief that the performance was possible and to do my best to give others a chance to create it together . The project was a tremendous stretch for everyone involved, we had to look past our own comfort zones, work beyond the site of our own noses, to give up the familiar and jump into the uncertainty of interdisciplinary play.

Paul and I realized early on that this play-time, this experimentation, this give and take, push and pull, was essential to the interdisciplinary process. Along with the daily frustrations came exhilarating play and moments of ‘ah ha’ when things began to click.

“Documentary of self at meeting. ‘It’s crazy just watching everything come together, working with artists and technologists, even art people who do art and technology putting them together with dancers who don’t usually use it, it’s just this amazing process where we’re trying to keep everyone equal collaborators and its like chasing or herding cats. But it’s really fun and today was our first day of really rewarding play. Several sessions of really rewarding work/play.”

Through having people invest and participate in multiple levels of production, each of us came in contact with each other’s art, our selves as competent art-makers, and ourselves as other (new to technology, new to performance or some combination there of). Just about each of us performed on the audio track, back stage, or on stage, or through media expression or technical support.

4) Performance:
The performance, in my eyes, was beautiful. It was a varied expression of the artistic drives of the group and a representation of the gathered skills as they mingled playfully in the expressive space through media and bodily presence. From backstage I was often struck by the total image which invoked moments of intense clarity of message. It was at times poetic, harsh, beautiful, and compelling. I learned something just from watching.

(Images/Description)
The scene groups broke down into Air an ethereal solo with flute, or rather a duet between sound and sound-triggered animation.

(Moira Jackson: dance, music, image sequence, costume design/construction; Paul Jackson: image editing, music; Brandon Morse: sound responsive video) In envisioning the performative expression of Air I was concerned with embodying some of the imagery we associate with air as well as “creating” air, and triggering media interaction via sound produced by air; wind chimes, various flutes, and recorders. The use of costume to extend the performers spatial presence is designed to create a moving screen on which both triggered media and static images can by projected. The “wing” attachments were designed to permit the possibility of flute/recorder playing. Working with Karen Bradley, I discovered movement possibilities based on Laban’s Effort, Shape, and Space theories.

Talk Back
An essential part of the performance was the audience Talk Back in which people asked the group questions about our ideology, our methodology, or artistic choices, and our equipment and media implementation. In general the response was very positive, people were intrigued by what they had seen and heard. But in some cases the implementation came into question, especially in case of our sound system which made the videoconferencing difficult to hear on the second night. In this case we explained that without funding and proper equipment we did the best we could, and that the event was not necessarily the best-case scenario, but an effort to educate and show the arts the directions in which they could be moving.

“Elements, a production by the Digital Performance Group addresses the fluid and dynamic changes imposed on our mother earth as a result of our thirst for technological advancement. Ironically, this production also signals arts’ successful coexistence with technology. Created through collaboration between artists and scholars in Art, Dance, Music, and Theatre, this production utilizes teleconferencing, motion triggering, animation, and video projection to stimulate creative conversations between movement, words, sounds, and visual images.”

“In the end it’s all about humans doing what they do best. Continually innovating and in the process redefining the standards we live by. It probably would have been easier to put up a production which did not involve all the technicalities and thus eliminated the glitches. But instead they chose to take a new path around and proved yet again that Humans are driven by change. This change was expected and definitely is for the better.”

Conclusion:
Whether working on a project online and across the country, or on campus and across departments, creating collaborations between visual artists, dancers, actors, musicians, and technologists can be a challenging and rewarding experience as variable as the technology and the individuals involved. Within these tenuous, shifting, human, and technologically mediated environments, conceptual boundaries are crossed and vital new forms of collaboration are evolving. Through each of these experiences, I learned to trust myself and the process of creating work beyond boundaries and comfort zones. Though it is not always easy to see and to be outside one’s discipline, interdisciplinary collaboration and making a place for creative play with technology is a valuable and essentially hopeful way of creating performance for our evolving world.