"Motion Bank has explored intersections of dance and technology since 2010 building on projects that reach back to as early as 1994. Technology for us is an enabler, an invitation to see more and take new perspectives on an art form that is inherently hard to translate into other domains outside the body. We know Marlon for a long time and have been following his relentless efforts in shaping dance-tech.net for this community and hence are happy to now be able to support it."

Scott deLahunta  and Florian Jenett from Motion Bank (Germany)

http://motionbank.org/

Kerstin Kussmaul from IDocde/REFLEX Europe (Austria)

http://www.idocde.net/pages/95

Nayse Lopez from festival Panorama (Brazil)

http://panoramafestival.com/o-festival/?lang=en

Rachel Boggia from bates College (USA)

http://www.bates.edu/dance/faculty/rachel-boggia/

Johannes Birringer  from Brunel University (UK)

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/johannes-birringer

Matt Lewis from ACCAD/OSU (USA)

http://accad.osu.edu/~lewis.239/

Marcela Giesche from Lake Studios Berlin (Germany)

http://lakestudiosberlin.wixsite.com/marcela-giesche/lake-studios-berlin

Mark Coniglio from Troikatronix/Isadora (Germany)

http://troikaranch.org/artistic-directors/

Susan Kozel  from Medea Malmo University (Sweden)

http://forskning.mah.se/en/id/kssuko

Norah Zuniga-Shaw from Department  of Dance of The Ohio State University

Director of Dance and Technology

https://dance.osu.edu/people/zuniga-shaw.1

Jaki Levi from ArrowRoot Media

https://arrowrootmedia.com/about/

Jeannette Ginslov Independent artists and researcher (UK)

PhD Candidate London South Bank University 

Lisa Nelson from Contact Collaborations, codirector CQ Contact Quarterly Magazine and director of Videoda

https://contactquarterly.com/

Images: Motion Bank Choreographic Coding Lab #5 Los Angeles 2015 @ UCLA

After four years research into the creation of digital dance scores with guest choreographers, the Motion Bank project of The Forsythe Company will conclude Phase One with a presentation of results both live and on-line and proposals for the future.

LIVE & ONLINE 2013
28 NOVEMBER TO 1 DECEMBER
FRANKFURT LAB
Schmidtstrasse 12, Frankfurt am Main


Live & OnLine will begin Thursday evening 28 November at 7 pm with a first public presentation of the on-line Motion Bankmaterials of guest choreographers Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion, Bebe Miller and Thomas Hauert, alongside an updated version of Deborah Hay’s website ‘Using the Sky’ first presented in June 2013 at Tanzkongress, Düsseldorf. Additionally, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, ZOO/ Thomas Hauert will present the German Premiere of MONO. 

Friday through Sunday activities are organised to support a fluid exchange of ideas and approaches to the creation and use of the new Motion Bank materials alongside related choreographic resources published by a growing Community of Practice (see:http://motionbank.org/en/content/research). Key individuals working with these projects have been invited to join the Motion Bankteam members to take part in and contribute to workshops, Q&A and public discussion during the days. Also planned is a major platform for dance students from Frankfurt, Dresden and Berlin to share the results of their research into applications of these resources. 

More information soon under: http://motionbank.org/en/event/live-online-2013

There is no attendance fee for the conference.
We kindly ask you to register for the conference by writing to registration@theforsythecompany.de with the subject-header “conference registration”. 

The performances of MONO cost Fri. & Sat. € 29 / € 14,50 – Sun. € 26 / € 13
Tickets must be purchased through the Städtischen Bühnen Frankfurt under the number 
+49 (0) 69 212 49494 or go to  www.theforsythecompany.com

CHOREOGRAPHIC CODING: A MOTION BANK LAB
26-29 November 2013
Z Zentrum für Proben und Forschung
Schmidtstrasse 12, Frankfurt am Main

Running in parallel with Live & OnLine, Choreographic Coding explores how to translate aspects of dance and choreography into digital form, one of the main goals of Motion Bank. This is a laboratory for 'code savvy' practitioners with expertise in digital media practice, e.g. video, graphics, programming.  Teams combining different skill sets including dance and choreography are encouraged to apply. 
For more information and to register for the lab: 
http://motionbank.org/en/event/motion-bank-laboratory

Motion Bank Workshop No. 5 on “Writing Dance” under the direction of Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion and Adrian Heathfield will commence in just a few days. From April 16 to 18, participants will come together at Frankfurt LAB to focus on discussion leading to practical work. Emphasis will be towards investigating choreographic and compositional processes, and experimental writing and scoring practices, questioning how a dance can be made and what it can communicate to the audience.

As part of the workshop, a Motion Bank Salon will take place once again. We therefore cordially invite you to join Adrian Heathfield on April 17 at 6 p.m. when he presents the film “Writing Not Yet Thought,” in which he and French author Hélène Cixous discuss the practice of writing as it relates to the genres of fiction, essays and poetry and its relationship to painting, music and philosophy.
Admission is free.
For more information, please visit www.motionbank.org

In addition, we would like to make you aware of one of our main events in 2013: as part of the 2013 Dance Congress, which will be held from June 6 to 9 in Düsseldorf, Motion Bank will be presenting the digital score based on Deborah Hay’s choreography “No Time To Fly.” Motion Bank and the Forsythe Company will also be conducting several workshops and talks at the event. 
More information on the Dance Congress program is available at www.tanzkongress.de

Goethe Institut New York

3D Alignment Forms. Animation of dancer’s traceforms in One Flat Thing, reproduced mapped to 3D space. 
Synchronous Objects Project, The Ohio State University and The Forsythe Company . 

Objects in Performance
As the object has become a central issue in both theory and the arts, the Goethe-Institut  New York dedicates a weekend to intensive theoretical exchange and spatial experience to the object in performance. An installation, a symposium and a performance are the starting point of long-term engagement  with the object and related matters in the fields of theory and the arts alike.

www.goethe.de/newyork

Synchronous Objects: Degrees of Unison
Installation by Norah Zuniga Shaw
February 2–26, 2012
Wed–Sun 2–7pm

Opening: 
February 2, from 6–8 pm

Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street (at Bowery)
New York, NY 10003

Synchronous Objects: Degrees of Unison is a multipart sound and video installation focusing on “One Flat Thing, reproduced,” an ensemble dance by William Forsythe.

Focusing on the choreographic visualization online project Synchronous Objects created by Norah Zuniga Shaw, Maria Palazzi and William Forsythe, the installation brings viewers into an encounter with the deep structures of a dance and the generative ideas contained within. A series of visual objects—animations, computer graphics, interactive tools—enact a parallel performance of Forsythe’s choreographic ideas. The work was first launched online in 2009 and is still available in this form. In the installation, Norah Zuniga Shaw stays close to the conceptual foundations of the online original while extending them into the architectural and experiential possibilities of the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building. In addition to interacting with the site and viewing HD animations from the project, visitors can spend time within a circle of synchronized visualizations unfolding from dance to data to objects over the 15-minute time span of the piece. William Forsythe’s voice calls out timing to the dancers and the sounds of the dancers’ actions move in multi-channel choreography around the space. Finally, a paper proliferation of creative processes can be found to read, leave behind, sort, or carry home.

Synchronous Objects: Degrees of Unison (2010)
A video installation by Norah Zuniga Shaw based on original material from
Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced (2009)
By William Forsythe, Norah Zuniga Shaw, Maria Palazzi

Objects in Performance
Symposium curated by André Lepecki, Performance Studies, NYU
February 3–4, 2012
NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Performance Studies
721 Broadway, 6th floor
New York, NY 10003

The recent phenomenon of object-invested experimental dance and performance echoes the resurgence of the object in recent philosophy, critical theory, literary and cultural studies; as well as in the renewed interest in the concept of the object in the visual arts. This resurgence of the object also has implications for studies on subjectivity. If, as Deleuze once said, “the status of the object is changed, so is the subject’s,” it is crucial to investigate the contemporary nature of this phenomenon. The Objects in Performance Symposium will gather a group of renowned American, German, and international scholars and artists, from a variety of fields and perspectives, to present their most recent research on the matter. The environment will be such as to stimulate exchange and conversation between disciplines, and between artists and scholars.

With Barbara Browning, Franz Anton Cramer, Eleonora Fabião, George Ferrandi, Jenn Joy, Heather Kravas, Thomas Lehmen, André Lepecki, Eva Meyer-Keller, Sarah Michelson, Ann Pellegrini, Allen S. Weiss, Norah Zuniga Shaw.

Death is Certain
Performance by Eva Meyer-Keller
February 5, 2012, 2 performances at 6:00 pm and 07:30 pm
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38
38 Ludlow Street (btw. Grand & Hester)                  
New York, NY 10002

Cherries have tender skin, meat and a kind of bone inside them. Their juice is red like blood. When you treat them like humans sometimes treat other humans, then they become human themselves or at least animated objects, which invite you to identify yourself with them. In the performance Death is Certain, Eva Meyer-Keller has installed sweet cherries as her protagonists.

The viewer is reminded of deaths from films, but also the reality of executions, how they really happen: associations from individual and collective experience in face of the sweet death at the kitchen table.

The Goethe-Institut New York is a branch of the Federal Republic of Germany’s global cultural institute, established to promote the study of German language and culture abroad, encourage international cultural exchange, and provide information on Germany’s culture, society, and politics.

William Forsythe interviewed by Thierry de Mey (2006)
About  the making and performing of One Flat Thing, Reproduced

More about Choreography or ELSE

This work is shown here with as courtesy of  the artists with educational purposes.

WOULD YOU LIKE MAKE A ONE TIME DONATION?
Support dance-tech.net and dance-tech.tv making a single donation of any amount.
Thank you!

Contact marlon@dance-tech.net for more information

IF YOU ARE A DANCE-TECH.NET MEMBER, YOU MAY USE THE SITE INTEGRATED SYSTEM

Motion Bank Workshop No. 1 April 2011

From the 26th to the 30th of April 2011 at The Frankfurt LAB.

DANCE & DATA: MIXING SCORES, SENSES, TOOLS AND REFLECTION

This first workshop in the series aims to increase awareness of tools and systems being used to score, notate, create and document dance. The following internationally recognised practitioners will provide insight into their latest activities through workshops and discussions: Paris-based choreographer Myriam Gourfink, video artist Philip Bussmann, Zagreb-based Performance Collective BadCo., and Ana Vujanović and Petra Sabisch from Everybody’s.

In addition, renowned neuroscientist Dr. Wolf Singer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, joins our Thursday evening Salon.

Please click HERE for an overview of the schedule. A detailed schedule is listed under each of the following descriptions. Biographies are at the bottom of this page.

Participation fee for all workshops (except Petra Sabisch and Ana Vujanovic) is 85€ / reduction 65€ (Students). For participation in two workshops: 120€ / reduction 100€ (Students). Free entrance to the Thursday evening Salon.

For Registration contact: motionbank -at- theforsythecompany.de (Nathalie Denis)

For More Information contact: workshop-moba -at- theforsythecompany.de (Célestine Hennermann)

For information about this workshop contact: Stefan.Hoelscher -at- theater.uni-giessen.de (Stefan Hölscher)

Everybodys and Walking Theory propose / modes of production: games & discussions

The procedure of the workshop emerges from the encounter between the platforms Everybodys and Walking Theory, by trying to develop theory out of the artistic work. We will investigate the use of games and discussions as modes of production in contemporary dance and performing arts. We will analyze, problematize and systematize these practical proposals in order to reflect on the invention of new forms of practicing and/or producing. Hence, the workshop invites artists, choreographers, theoreticians, performers, producers, or in one word, practitioners in the cultural field.

Detailed Schedule:

Sunday, 24 April: 15-18h
Monday, 25 April: 11-17h30
Tuesday, 26 April: 11-17h30
Wednesday, 27 April: 11-17h30
Thursday, 28 April: 11-13h

In cooperation with the Institut für angewandte Theaterwissenschaften from the Justus-Liebig-Universität and The Forsythe Company/Motion Bank.

Whatever Dance Toolbox

Whatever Dance Toolbox is a product of a long-standing research-oriented collaboration around computer-dancer interaction between BADco. and German human-machine interface developer and artist Daniel Turing. It is a suite of free software tools designed to assist in generating, analyzing, developing and rehearsing choreographic work. Simply put, tools employ different types of visual analysis, delay, reverse-play, jitter and slow motion functions, together with long exposition function, to allow dancers and choreographers to study, refine and enrich their movement choices and relationships. Getting familiar with working in technologically conditioned environment, understanding how the machine “sees” the space and movement, working with divided attention, approaching improvisation in terms of montage, learning how to use technology in order to analyze dance and induce a change in the quality of movement, reinventing the quality of relations to other bodies in space are some of the experiences participants will have using WDT.

“Regardless of the fact that we developed this software for the sake of dance analysis it is equally interesting to non-dancers because instead of explaining dance only as expression of the dancer’s self or as self-referring choreographic object, it brings to light relational aspects and thinking procedurally in dance creation.”

During this three day workshop Tomislav Medak and Nikolina Pristaš will make an introduction into technical and practical aspects of working with WDT, explain basic concepts they derived from working with it and will move with the participants through a series of practical tasks.

Detailed Schedule:

Tuesday, 26 April: 11-17h30
Wednesday, 27 April: 11-17h30
Thursday, 28 April: 11-13h

On choreographic organisation

An open conversation on how models from neuroscience might shed light on the creation and performance of choreography. Facilitated by Scott deLahunta and linked to the “Dance Engaging Science” interdisciplinary research meetings

Detailed Schedule:

Thursday April 28, 19h

Technology and Technique: Documenting Dance

The video camera has been a standard tool of the trade of theater professionals for capturing rehearsals and performances for over a decade. Improvisations are filmed, runs are analyzed and recreated, shows are documented for archival purposes. Video artist Philip Bussmann has been creating stage video and dance films since the mid nineties. Pulling from examples from his own work and those of others this workshop will investigate the possibilites, shortcommings and challenges of documenting dance using »traditional«, non-interactive video technologies and techniques and turning these documentations into artistic works of their own rights. A special emphasis is placed on the problem of recreating the original energy of a dance performance on film and the challenge to convey the impact of a live performance on a theater audience on a video screen.

Detailed Schedule:

Thursday, 28 April: 14-17h30
Friday, 29 April: 11-17h30
Saturday, 30 April: 11-17h30

language

Myriam Gourfink will explore the connection between weight and breathing and notation. These two factors raise the question of pre-movements. Our most hidden and deepest motor resources. The continuous interaction of this data (weight/breathing) creates a kind of general “sweeping” happening as much inside the body as in the space around it. The quality of concentration that emerges from the awareness of every psychological and corporeal movement, the performer’s personal inner upheaval and the moment itself is what Gourfink will try to approach through formalizing a language based on Labanotation.

Detailed Schedule:

Thursday, 28 April: 14-17h30
Friday, 29 April: 11-17h30
Saturday, 30 April: 11-17h30

BIOGRAPHIES (in alphabetical order):

BADco. is a Zagreb-based theatre collective. The collective, a confluence of interests in choreography, dramaturgy and philosophy, is nowadays made up of Pravdan Devlahović, Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Lovro Rumiha and Zrinka Užbinec. Since it was founded in 2000, it has been systematically focusing on the theatrical and dance performance as a problem field – questioning the established ways of performing, representing and spectating. They approach the theatrical act as an unstable communicational exchange, a complex imaginary challenging the spectator to peer beyond the homogenizing media reality and reclaim her or his freedom of spectating. BADco. is invited to the Bienale of Venice 2011. Nikolina Pristaš is a choreographer, dancer and performer, one of the co-founders of BADco. Tomislav Medak is a philosopher with interests in constellations contemporary political philosophy, media theory and aesthetics. He is co-ordinating theory program and publishing activities of the Multimedia Institute/MAMA (Zagreb, Croatia, and free software and free culture advocate. http://badco.hr/

Philip Bussmann is a video artist and set designer. A native of Germany, he has been designing stage video for international dance, theater, and opera productions since 1995. Mr. Bussmann began his career in New York City at The Wooster Group, where he designed the video for House/ Lights and To You, the Birdie. At Staatsoper Stuttgart he created video for Die Zauberflöte, directed by Peter Konwitschny, and Tristan und Isolde, directed by Luk Perceval. His ongoing collaborations with William Forsythe include Kammer/Kammer, Decreation and You Made Me a Monster, among others. Recently he designed the video for Lost Highway at English National Opera in London, video, set and lights for Gotham Chamber Opera’s production of Il Mondo della Luna at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, both directed by Diane Paulus, and the set for Falling Man at Thalia Theater Hamburg, directed by Sandra Strunz. He also creates dance, performance and video projects with his own company, 2+. http://www.philipbussmann.com

With Contraindre (2004), This is My House (2005) or more recently Les temps Tiraillés, Myriam Gourfink has developed a demanding and personal choreographic body of work, drawing on a precise way of writing inspired by Rudolf Laban (who elaborated a theory on the notation of movement, known as « Labanotation », in the beginning of the 20th century). Based on yoga and respiration control, her approach inscribes the living process in an almost hypnotically slow space-time which goes against a culture that is ruled by speed an zapping. Myriam Gourfink works in close collaboration with composer Kasper T. Toeplitz, who constructs sound-spaces in real time, as well as with computer scientists, in order to explore, with the help of both dancers and digital devices, micro-movements in an intense synergy of mind and body. The goal of this research is to invite performers, via an open score, to create the dance together with the choreographer. http://www.myriam-gourfink.com

Petra Sabisch is choreographer & philosopher. Besides her own choreographic works (last method, unplugged, Berlin 2010 & conversation piece, Berlin 2008), and diverse artistic collaborations in Paris & Berlin (e.g. A. Baehr, J. Bel, A. Chauchat, F. Gies, M. Ingvartsen) Sabisch received the Doctor of Philosophy (London) in 2010 with her dissertation Choreographing Relations: Practical Philosophy and Contemporary Choreography in the works of Antonia Baehr, Gilles Deleuze, Juan Dominguez, Félix Guattari, Xavier Le Roy and Eszter Salamon (Munich: epodium 2010). Since 2005 she is involved in the application of open source-strategies for the Performing Arts with the open platform Everybodys (http://www.everybodystoolbox.net/) & in the development of the artist-run Performing Arts Forum PAF (France). Sabisch has published internationally and is teaching, e.g. at the Univ. of Dance & Circus in Stockholm, the Univ. of Giessen and the Inter-University Center for Dance (HZT) in Berlin. http://www.verandaproduction.net

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolf Singer studied Medicine in Munich and Paris, obtained his MD from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and his PhD from the Technical University in Munich. Since 1981 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main. In 2004 he was the founding director of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) and in July 2008 he initiated the foundation of the Ernst Strüngmann Institute (ESI) for cognitive neurosciences. Article about Dr. Singer on the Goethe Institute website.

Ana Vujanović (1975 Belgrade); freelance worker – theorist, writer, lecturer, organizer, dramaturge – in contemporary performing arts and culture from Belgrade, based in Berlin / Belgrade / Paris. Ph.D. in Theatre Studies. Editor of TkH, journal for performing arts theory, and a member of editorial collective of TkH platform for performing arts theory and practice, Belgrade (www.tkh-generator.net); from 2010 in residence in Paris, working at Les laboratories d’Aubervilliers (www.leslaboratoires.org). Lecturer at the Interdisciplinary post-graduate studies at the University of Arts, Belgrade. Engages in many artworks: performance, theatre, dance, video… (as co-author, dramaturge, performer); and organizes and/or gives lectures and workshops at symposia, conferences, and festivals. Her particular commitment is empowering the independent scenes in Belgrade (Other Scene), ex-Yugoslavia (Clubture, The FaMa) and in Europe (PAF). Publishes regularly in journals and anthologies. Author of the books: Destroying Performance Signifiers, An Introduction to Performance Studies with A. Jovićević, and DOXICID.

Yes!

Our recently created series CHOREOGRAFY or ELSE: Contemporary Experiments on the Performance of Motion has been included as a relevant reference on research on contemporary choreography a project  supported by The Forsythe Company  and led by Scott delaHunta: MOTION BANK aka MOBA

MOBA is "...ia new four year project (2010-2013) of The Forsythe Company providing a broad context for research into choreographic practice. The main focus is on the creation of on-line digital scores in collaboration with guest choreographers* to be made publicly available via the Motion Bank website. Both these unique score productions and development of related teaching curriculum will be undertaken with and rely on the expertise and experience of key collaborative partners."

read more about MOBA

See in person

Thank you to the artists that are collaborating with their art and openness for crazy ideas! You are the makers or the experiments and futures!

Marlon

Geneva, Switzerland

Go to Motion Bank Website

MOTION BANK is a new four year project (2010-2013) of The Forsythe Company providing a broad context for research into choreographic practice. The main focus is on the creation of on-line digital scores in collaboration with guest choreographers* to be made publicly available via the Motion Bank website. Both these unique score productions and development of related teaching curriculum will be undertaken with and rely on the expertise and experience of key collaborative partners.

Public educational activities and events reflecting the diverse issues related to score creation will be offered at The Frankfurt Lab, and will include performances and presentations of the guest choreographers as well as lectures. Workshops and residencies organized with senior scientists and scholars aim to stimulate interdisciplinary research based on questions coming from dance practice. Exchange of information with and support for related projects is facilitated through working groups and associate networks.

The pilot project for Motion Bank is the award winning Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced: a joint project of William Forsythe and The Ohio State University’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design and the Department of Dance.

*The guest choreographers for 2010-2013 will be Deborah Hay, Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, and Bruno Beltrão.

CQ chapbook 1, Vol. 35 no. 2, is a unique small-format 32-page piece, packed with dynamic photos and drawings, featuring collaborations between dance and new media:

• Darkling: enter technology - where is the body? an essay on a performance work-in-progress by Hélène Lesterlin
• Jonah Bokaer: moving toward an embodied technology an interview with this experimental choreographer by Nancy Wozny
• The Choreographic Resource: technologies for understanding dance based on a lecture by researcher-consultant-collaborator Scott deLahunta
• interview with choreographer William Forsythe on his interactive online project: Synchronous Objects by Marlon Barrios Solano of dance-tech.net

I interviewed the digital musician and performer Joel Ryan at STEIM in Amsterdam. 3/8/08. This is his bio: (he has been around!)