(Dance) Notation Series

(Dance) Notation Series is both an online and a real life platform to exchange issues and projects on dance notation. It is the result of a growing collaboration with the Art Practice and Development research group of Marijke Hoogenboom at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and other international partners. It will continue to explore the objectives and results that were generated during the Inside Movement Knowledge project, the interdisciplinary research into new methods for the documentation, transmission and preservation of contemporary choreographic and dance knowledge. Just as the IMK project, the (Dance) Notation Series will operate within a variety of disciplines and approaches.

(Dance) Notation Series is an initiative of ICK and the Art Practice and Development research group of Marijke Hoogenboom,  Amsterdam School of the Arts (AHK). 

16h00-18h00 Research Encounters, Dance and Technology with Bertha Bermudez and Marlon Barrios.

During this encounter an overview of previous international encounters at IRCAM around Workshop on movement qualities and physical models visualizations and the Tanzplan Bienale around Digital tools in dance education will be presented by Bertha Bermudez.

As a result of his research residency at ICK, Marlon Barrios Solano Danc- tech.net director will present his research On Choreographic Knowledge and its Circulation on the Net.

Please register by sending an email to sissy@ickamsterdam.com
 

Seminars on Cybernetics: from Bateson and the latest approximations 
 
An Ecology of (EMBODIED) mind(S)

These two film screening/seminars will explore relevant, influential and polemic ideas from the cybernetics pioneer Gregory Bateson and  its latest post-humanist developments in relation with embodied practices.

The two seminars are articulated around two documentaries as portals for the discussions and activities.

19 May:
An Ecology of Mind: A Daughter’s Portrait of Gregory Bateson
Seminar led by Nora Bateson
Co facilitated by Marlon Barrios Solano
Duration 4 hours
http://www.anecologyofmind.com/thefilm/
http://www.anecologyofmind.com/bateson/
 
20 May
The Whole Creature: embodied, networked and…out of control
Seminar/workshop based on the documentary Fast, Cheap and out of Control by Errol Morris offering  a counterpoint of contemporary ideas of choreography, embodiment, social systems, networks, control, organization and complexity. 
Facilitated by Marlon Barrios Solano
Duration 4 hours
 
Time: 10:00-14:00
Fee per seminar of 1 day: 50 euro
Reduction fee for both seminars: 90 euro

please register by sending an email with your name, email address and telephone number to sissychoi@ickamsterdam.com or phone ICK and ask for Sissy at +31-(0)20-6167240.

Reading/Writing Dance
Three different speakers will present their projects and perspectives in relation to the reading and writing of dance. Kerstin Kussmaul, dance teacher and researcher, will present the research project IDOCDE an online database for dance education; choreographer Emilie Gallier will talk about her new work Synchronicity, a reading dance performance and Carla Fernandes, cognitive linguistic researcher will introduce the development and status of the Transmedia Knowledge Base for contemporary Dance project.

Kerstin Kussmaul, coordinator of the IDODEC project, a network of twelve European dance educators around the development of an online database that aims to develop and document best practices of contemporary dance education, to improve networking among contemporary dance educators and to increase visibility of this vibrant art form. In order to do so an online platform is being designed that has tagging, defining groups and developing written documents on dance education as its main goals. Kussmaul will introduce the project and expose some of the challenges in relation to writing dance.

Carla Fernandes is assistant Professor at IPLeiria and Senior Researcher at the New University of Lisbon (PT). Her current research focus is on the intersection of cognitive linguistics and the performative arts, particularly concerning the creation of multimodal corpora, digital archives and new documentation models. She coordinates the state-funded international research project TKB: “A Transmedia Knowledge Base for Contemporary Dance”, a project in the interstices between linguistics and contemporary dance studies. TKB is a more extensive and transdisciplinay project aiming at the design and construction of an open-ended multimodal knowledge base to document, annotate and support the creation of contemporary dance pieces. Fernandes will present the project focusing on the process of annotations and writings of movements.

Emilie Gallier is a choreographer, a researcher and the director of PØST Cie.  Gallier will present her project Synchronicity: a performance, book publication of a poem, and the choreography on paper (score), together with an essay written by Daniel Rovers (writer). This publication is a platform for the choreographer to probe the writing of movements of thoughts, and to turn to the spectator as reader, observer, and performer.

Workshop Reading/Writing Dance
Emilie Gallier Synchronization
Friday 3rd-Sunday 5th February
11h00-15h00 studio Habertu
12 participants

you can register for both the workshop of Emilie Gallier and the encounter on the 4th, by sending an email with your name, email address and telephone number to francieneppens@ickamsterdam.nl

Dance perception and visualization

How do we experience movement? Is looking at movement the same as doing movement? How does what we see affect what we do? What is the role of images in the production, observation and understanding of dance?
Three different speakers will address these questions from the perspective of their own research projects: Sarah Fdili Aloui researcher of Gesture recognition and  graphical physical models at IRCAM Paris, UK based cognitive neuroscientists Corinne Jola  and visual artist Bram Vreeswijk.

Since October 2010, Sarah Fdili Aloui researches both at the LIMSI-CNRS and at IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR). Her PhD deals with the conception and development of advanced models for human-computer interaction, applied to an artistic computational framework and particularly to gesture recognition fields. Sarah worked on the development  of the Interactive Installation Double Skin/Double Mind. During this encounter she will present the current status of her PhD-research and results of experiments about what effect graphical feedback based on physical models can have within contemporary dance.

Corinne Jola, is a research fellow at Surrey University, UK. Her research interests are representation, generation, and perception of the human body and complex human movement patterns, in particular in relation to the performing arts. Jola now develops a new study that investigates how the processes and structure of the human brain changes in response to intense physical experience. Is it possible to see the experiences of embodiment in the behaviour of the brain? The work of Emio Greco | PC with its particular movement language and curiosity for the body and the mind provides a unique opportunity and an optimal basis for this study. During her presentation Jola will present her latest results and the status of research.

Bram Vreeswijk, studied photography, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague and then following Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Vreeswijk is an video artist but his work has developed more and more in the direction of dance and performance art. His artistic work almost always goes together with philosophical research.  Within ICK he has developed the project ‘Dance-Experience-Watch’ , exploring methods for the ‘articulation’ of the visual and physical experience of dance – making it ‘explicit’ (conscious, workable) by using images or language.  During his presentation Vreeswijk will present this project.

The latest edition of the (Dance) Notation Series focused on the use and development of Scores, Archiving Dance and Performance and on the development of processes of Transmission. Following the previous format, practical and theoretical workshops, presentations and discussions were part of the programme. Taking place on two days in May 2011, this edition was embedded within two different events; the opening of ICK’s multimedia library on May 21^st and 22^nd in Amsterdam and the Performance Studies International conference Camillo 2.0 on May 27th in Utrecht.
 
The programme of (Dance) Notation Series #1 was developed in collaboration with the research group Art Practice and Development of the Amsterdam School of the Arts (AHK) and Motion Bank/The Forsythe Company.

Programme 22 May - ICKamsterdam, Amsterdam

Introduction of the multimedia centre and series of lectures and discussions on the development and use of scores (dance notation and music parts) in the performing arts  

• Notations 21 Music Scores for Contemporary Music, by Julie Dassaud and Bjørn Uyens (Notations.nl and Kulter) 
• Reconstructing and transmitting Lucinda Childs’s work,by Ty Boomershine (freelance repetitor and teacher with Lucinda Childs and other choreographers)
• Multimedia Tools within dance Education, by John Taylor, Maria Ines Villasmil and Vivianne Rodrigues ( Research group at Amsterdam School for the Arts, ARTI Group)

Friday 27 May - Inside Movement Knowledge: The Resource Room
Part of the Performance Studies International conference Camillo 2.0

Inside Movement Knowledge: Resource Room
The Inside Movement Knowledge: The Resource Room proposed for the PSI#17 SHIFTS aims to function as a point of overlap between members of the interdisciplinary Inside Movement Knowledge project and other researchers and artists involved in developing new media instruments to document and transfer dance and choreographic knowledge. The Room will open the door to all conference participants for a HANDS-ON practical experience with not only a variety of existing resources (e.g. Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine DVD-Rom) but also emerging tools, interfaces, methods and modes of enquiry involved in the resource’s creation. Divided into two main themes; archiving dance and notation-scores for dance - the Resource Room will also host related SHIFTS initiatives.
 
Archiving Dance & Performance
Lecture presentation and discussions with: Carla Fernandes (a Transmedia Knowledge Base for Contemporary Dance, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Sarah Whatley & David Bennett (Siobhan Davies RePlay, Coventry University).
 
Shift by Thomas Crombez; "Mapping Performative Text // Belgium is Happening"
 
Notation-Scores
Lecture presentation and discussions with: Chris Ziegler ("Development of a Movement Technique, Nagarika 1/2: Bharatanatyam and Kalarippayattu DVD-ROMs”, ZKM Center for Art and Media & Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts), Scott deLahunta (Motion Bank/ The Forsythe Company)
 
SHIFT by Sara Wookey, Andrea Božić, Joukje Kolff, Jeroen Fabiusand Bertha Bermúdez: “Dance is Hard to See: Capturing and Transmitting Movement through Media, Language and Muscle Memory.”

As a first pilot program of workshop and lecture-presentations, the (Dance) Notation Series aimed to test and discuss the potential of the platform during the second edition of the ICK-event Party in the Kitchen.

For this first presentation, Cécile Médour of the Centre Benesh in Paris gave an introductory workshop Benesh notation and Annet Dekker, Gaby Wijers and Vivian van Saaze (from the Netherlands Media Art Institute NIMk) gave a hands-on workshop on documenting performances. Furthermore, there was a symposium where the focus was on documentation of creative processes and where the interactive installation Double Skin/Double Mind was presented in a new mode – as a pre-performance experience for the audience.

WORKSHOPS
Reading movement: an introduction to the Benesh Notation System by Cécile Médour
As a collaboration with Centre Benesh Paris, this workshop proposes a joyful entrance towards a system of writing and reading movement: the Benesh Notation. The main objectives of this workshop are to read movement from a choreographic score, understand the principles and suggestions of the Benesh notation system to communicate choreographic material. Acquiring simple and effective tools that can help understand, memorize, appropriate and analyse movement.

Documenting Performances by Gaby Wijers, Annet Dekker, Vivian van Saazeand Gabriëlla Giannachi
In the context of the interdisciplinary Inside Movement Knowledge project, the research team from the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) were invited to explore the possibilities of developing a generic documentation model for contemporary dance by drawing from their experiences in the preservation, documentation and knowledge transfer of media art. Their key objective was to develop a methodology that allows to gain insight into artistic reasoning in such a way that it provides future dancers, choreographers and researchers with an understanding of their work. As result a model of documentation has been developed.
 
Organized in two parts, the first as a panel presentation and the second as hands-on format, this workshop will further explore the questions “what do we need to know in order to be able to recreate, re-perform, the performance piece or bring it into the future?”
 
SYMPOSIUM
Notation within creative processes
Speakers: Scott de Lahunta (USA/DE), Annet Dekker (NL), Christine Cardanc (FR)
Moderator: Bertha Bermúdez (SP/NL)
What are the different modes in which notation is present during the creative process? In which way does notation relate to the artistic work? And what are its values?
Three different preservation projects will be presented, ranging from the use of traditional notation systems to new media use in the field of dance and visual arts.
 
Analyzing movement, an interdisciplinary approach
speakers: Corinne Jola (SZ), Carla Fernandes (PR) , Sarah Fdili (MR)
moderator: Scott deLahunta (USA/DE)
Looking at movement can have many different purposes. What do we focus on and in which way do we make translations when working with movement in order to develop tools, glossaries, experiments? What does one need to take into consideration when embarking on interdisciplinary research around dance?
 
Launch of (Dance) Notation Series
Closing the symposium and workshops in the (Dance) Notation Series, an online and real life platform of exchange on questions, issues and projects around dance notation will be presented by Bertha Bermúdez and Marijke Hoogenboom.
 
PRESENTATION
Art meets Science, Kate Stevens (AUS)
In October 2010 the Interactive Installation Double Skin/Double Mind was the focal point of a behavioural experiment conducted during a recent two-day symposium in Sydney, Australia – SEAM 2010: Agency and Action. Participants in the experiment interacted with an enclosed projection of sections of the Double Skin/Double Mind workshop. They then watched excerpts from Extra Dry by Emio Greco | PC and a live performance of GLOW by Chunky Move. During the performances, researchers from MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney collected continuous real-time audience reaction data. Experimental psychology methods were used to investigate the effects of the pre-performance interaction with the interactive installation. In the surroundings of the DS/DM installation Kate Stevens will present the results and question this innovative and interesting experiment can present to issues of learning, perspective and experiences of dance.

Research encounters / Notation Series 2012

Open to who take an interest in dance and its developments, the Notation Series proposes a continuous program throughout the winter and spring of 2012. Under an informal format of encounters, researchers and artists will be given the space to present and debate their projects and questions.

Following the proposal of the previous (Dance) Notation Series, the encounters will be accompanied by practical workshops open to all kinds of participants. Some of the meetings will not take place in Amsterdam but will be embedded within other international events.

The encounters in Amsterdam will be moderated by our research guest Marlon Barrios Solano director and creator of Dance-tech (www.dance-tech.net)