Technology, performance and emotion

About this session:

Is it possible to integrate technology and performance without losing the ‘heat’ of the moment? Does technology dominate or engage in a reciprocal relationship with the dancer? As UBC researcher, Bob Pritchard, says, “I want the technology to be transparent so that what remains is the humanity of the performance.”

A team of three researchers: composer and digital technology designer Bob Pritchard, dramatist Lynn Fels and dancer/choreographer Kathryn Ricketts bring their practice and inquiry into a vibrant interplay of sound, image and movement that evokes questions, startling the audience and performer alike. The focus of this seminar is to speak to and demonstrate how the spontaneity and immediacy of improvisation can enter into a performative dialogue with highly refined computer programs in ways that humanizes technology, and enlarges the performer’s metaphorical and physical presence.

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About Lynn:

Lynn Fels is a performance arts educator and assistant professor in the Arts Education program, Faculty of Education, at Simon Fraser University. Her focus is on the arts as a medium of inquiry, particularly through technology and as a venue for social change. Performative inquiry was conceptualized and articulated for her doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia. Her book, "Exploring Curriculum: Performative Inquiry, Role Drama, and Learning", co-authored with George Belliveau, has just been published by Pacific Education Press.

About Kathryn:

Kathryn has been working for the past 26 years in the field of movement and visual arts. Her work has been presented throughout Europe, South America, Africa and Canada. Kathryn ran her own company (ricketts dance co) in Copenhagen Denmark for the 10 years and later a 3 year professional dance training program called MainDance as well as her professional company Plan B Dance Productions in Vancouver. For the past 10 years Kathryn has been working with a focus on social /political issues in schools, galleries and community centers with movement and visual art as the language. She has recently completed her Masters at the University of British Columbia on the topic of identity and place addressed through dance/theatre and is in the first year of her Doctoral program at Simon Fraser University furthering this research into palliative care. This work involves a series of dance solos called Lugs & Pals, which explore notions of emotional and physical displacement through the telling of personal stories. With A/r/tography and Performative Inquiry as foundational methodologies, she is exploring transmediation techniques specifically image, text, and spoken word to embodiment.

About Bob:

Bob Pritchard’s creative work includes concert music, interactive music and video pieces, video editing, and software development. He holds a doctorate in composition and teaches at the University of British Columbia School of Music, where he is co-director of UBC’s MUsic, Sound and Electroacoustic Technology group (MUSET), a researcher with the Institute for Computing, Information, and Cognitive Science (ICICS), and a member of the Media And Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC). In 2004 he received a 3-year Artist-Researcher grant from SSHRC to develop cyberglove-controlled speech synthesis. In 2007 Pritchard, Fels, and Vatikiotis-Bateson received a 3-year joint Canada Council/NSERC grant for the development of Digital Ventriloquized Actors (DiVAs), combining gestural control of speech synthesis with virtual faces. In 2007 his interactive piece Strength for saxophone and video received a Unique Award of Merit from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.