dance week 2004 :: virtually dancing - new media + new frontiers

In parternership with Ausdance Qld
13th May 2004
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts


It was the ideal situation for members of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences, its guest speakers and members of the dance community to join together to discuss the pushing of boundaries of space and place and to explore the potential for performance in virtual realms.

Presenters for the event include Maria Adriana Verdaasdonk from Tokyo-based Media Performance Unit 66b/cell, Lazaros Kastanis MSc Research Fellow at the Advanced Computational Modelling Centre (ACMC) of the University of Queensland and Australian-based international Choreographer Chrissie Parrott who has also been the recipient of an Arts WA Research Fellowship to investigate the impact of new technology on performing arts.

The Forum was hosted by Associate Professor Cheryl Stock, BA (Hons), PhD and Head of Dance, QUT Creative Industries who brought together the diverse presenters and audience members expertly and smoothly. The post-presentation discussion continued for some time and later out in the bar of the Judith Wright Centre.

 
the presenters

Maria Adriana Verdaasdonk
Maria Adriana Verdaasdonk (Melbourne, Australia) is a theatre studies graduate who based herself in Tokyo in the early 1990’s to study the martial art aikido and the Japanese dance form known as butoh. Working intensively with the dancer Akiko Motofuji, she has also participated in several performance projects with butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno under the direction of his son Yoshito Ohno.
In 1994 she co-founded Tokyo-based performance unit 66b/cell with her partner and visual artist, Tetsutoshi Tavata as a result of work involving body movement and multimedia. This media and performance collective present work in theatres, warehouses and galleries and perform internationally in performing arts and media arts festivals. For 66b/cell, the relationship and tension between the entities of body, visual imagery and sound is the binding principle.

She is currently a creative-based MA (research) candidate at Queensland University of Technology where she is continuing to explore stage environments focusing on the performing body and the relationship with digital/interactive visual and sound media. She received the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts Award for visual research on the Japanese art concept of ‘ma’ in 1996,and the Peter Elkin Drama Prize for the Faust II Project in 1997.

2003 - Test-patches ver.03, dance and media art performance, Seoul International Dance Festival, Korea; Test-patches ver.03, dance and media art performance, Goethe Institute Tokyo; eAT’03, electronic art festival, dance and computer graphics installation- performance, Kanazawa, Japan.

2002 - Global Media 2002, art installation, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; ISEA2002 (International Symposium of Electronic Arts), poster session and demonstration, Nagoya, Japan; Test-patches ver.02, dance and media art performance, Jugendstiltheater, Vienna, Austria; Ars Electronica (media arts festival): Faust II Hybrid Version; Test-patches, Linz, Austria; Test-patches ver. 02, dance and media art performance, Theater Rex, Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro; Next 02 [New Media Culture Symposium], Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

2001- Survival/Penal/Colony, dance-theatre-installation, Tacheles Theatersaal, Berlin, Germany; Australia-Japan New Media Gallery, online project with the Australian Embassy Tokyo; Test-patches ver.01, dance and media art performance, Japan Foundation, Tokyo.

2000 - Far East Technology vol. 4, Limelight, NYC.; Survival Life, multimedia dance performance, La Foret Museum Roppongi, Tokyo; St Kilda Film Festival: Fusion, Melbourne, Australia; Next Wave Festival: Faust II Project, multimedia dance performance, Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Fringe Festival Fashion Awards 2000, simultaneous live performance; ISDN linkup event with Melbourne Metro Nightclub and Co:exist Studio, Tokyo.

Lazaros Kastanis
Lazaros Kastanis MSc is currently employed at the Advanced Computational Modelling Centre (ACMC) of the University of Queensland as a research fellow. The centre deals with the development of Virtual Reality Environments amongst other things. Lazaros has been involved in the research and development of Virtual Environments for approximately 10 years and his particular area of interest is landscape and data visualisation.
The virtual Theatre project is a collaborative exercise between the ACMC and the school of English, Media and Art history. The project aims to develop a online realtime environment for the creation of theatre sets and the investigation of theatre space. Users of the environment can dynamically build 3D sets that can then be saved online or locally and shared with other users and parishioners. The project is now being extended to any configurable space. The development of the project will be discussed. Topics covered include: the modeling of theatres, users of the project, future directions.

Chrissie Parrott
Chrissie Parrott’s distinctive, choreographic style draws equally upon her foundations in classical dance and the richness of the 20th Century contemporary dance vocabulary. Chrissie is driven by an interior velocity that stems from working intimately with dancers on establishing the motivation and emotion that underscores her style of movement.

She has created a repertoire of over 60 works - most particularly within the context of the Chrissie Parrott Dance Company, as well as commissions from WA Ballet, Australian Dance Theatre, Queensland Ballet, Sydney Theatre Company, Ausdance, Sinfionetta de Lorraine France, Theater Vorpommern, in the Baltic city of Stralsund. Tanz Forum Koln, Germany.

Chrissie danced with the WA Ballet, One Extra Company in Sydney, Festival Ballet Nicic de Monte Carlo – Basel, Switzerland, Crameer Balletten - Stockholm and Tanz Forum - Cologne where she created 2 works for the company and its touring offshoot which toured to Avignon France in 1980.

Her outstanding and sustained contribution to contemporary dance associated arts, has been significantly acknowledged by the presentation of the SYDNEY MYER PERFORMING ARTS AWARD-outstanding contribution to national choreographic practice. The SWAN GOLD AWARD-outstanding theatre development, SOUNDS AUSTRALIA AWARD-commissioning of Australian composers and live music in performance, WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CITZEN OF THE YEAR AWARD in the category of arts and entertainment.

In 1999 Chrissie’s interest and research into computing and new technology attracted a research fellowship from ArtsWA to investigate the impact of new technology on performing arts, since that time she has collaborated on a number works using motion capture and key framing animation techniques. WAAPA. [Hawk I Hawk II] Tasdance [Virtual K©ontours] QUT [Pixelated Sea].

She has spent time in the world’s leading commercial motion capture studio in Paris, ‘Medialab during this visit a series of specific choreographic phrases were performed wearing a magnetic motion tracking suit. The data formed the first stage of the process of her film "On the Wing".

In 2001 she was appointed senior research fellow at Edith Cowan University.
Her most recent work includes projects with QUT’s Creative Industries where she holds a position as adjunct professor. [01/04] Both projects will use IT design with live performance with screen based outcomes.