As can be seen through the work of Random Dance Company and Merce Cunningham’s recent productions, dance and ‘new’ technology is gradually finding its way into mainstream theatre dance. The use of animations and of ‘real-time’ digitally controlled media in live performance will, I anticipate, eventually become as familiar as electronically controlled lighting and electro-acoustic sound environments. However, in the first months of the twenty-first century, dance is still very much in the first stages of a love affair with the world of cyberspace, enamoured with its possibilities, wide-eyed at the things it will allow us to do, the dreams it will allow us to pursue. But at the same time we experience frustration with the way it can stop our artistic dreams becoming a reality.

For several years artists from all disciplines have been working with what are called ‘new’ technologies, attempting to understand how they work, and how they can be made to facilitate the realisation of artistic visions. Dance artists are relative newcomers to the field. Of necessity choreographers have spent a great deal of time developing works which, until recently, were ‘in progress’ when shown (generally in ‘sharings’ after workshops). Indeed many such works have been on-site experiments with the intricacies of the new technologies. This has been frustrating for artists and audiences alike but, I would argue, is a necessary stage in the development of the work we are undertaking. Each time an artist or choreographer begins to work with a new piece of software they embark on a frustratingly steep learning curve. Not only must they learn how the software works, they must also find ways to make something devised for other purposes serve an artistic vision which may be diametrically opposed to those purposes. (A not inconsiderable number of programmes and devices used routinely by artists working with digital media can be traced back to military sources.) One result of this is that there has been a great deal of discussion about, or claims for, the technical aspects of the works at the expense of discussion about their artistic content (in part because the latter has rarely had an opportunity to emerge in a mature form).

As someone who has been working with such technologies this is, to me, not a surprising state of affairs. However, casual conversations with dance audiences, and with critics, have made it clear that there is much concern about the artistic qualities of the digital dance work which has been presented in public arenas. A frequent comment has been on the lines that the medium has great potential, but because most of the work is underdeveloped its value is not being shown to the full and, it has been said to me, "This is not good enough". As an audience member who has sat through many events and performances (including my own) which did not quite ‘work’, or which were underdeveloped in terms of their artistic content, I can understand these concerns. As an artist, however, I feel frustrated by this attitude.

Conversations with dance artists working in this medium show that they are only too aware of the dangers of presenting work which is ‘in progress’. But, like anyone working on the edge of a new mode of practice, or with a new medium, they know that they have to go through the stage of experimentation with the medium to master its particularities before mature work can be developed. Perhaps unfortunately, choreographers have to show the progress of their experimentation in front of a not always sympathetic public, in spite of the fact that they are aware that it is underdeveloped, and constitutes only a partial step along the path they are travelling. (Even an artist of the calibre of Robert Wilson does not escape this process. His .’digital opera’ Monsters of Grace shown at the Barbican in 1998 suffered from the same failing as many other works by artists entering this field of practice. Its use of digitally generated scenography was sadly underdeveloped in this work)

But things are gradually beginning to change in the world of digital dance, as Rob Weschler, of Palindrome Dance Company, a company which specialises in the dialogue between performance and new technologies has observed. After some eight years of consistent experimentation with interactive digital media, Weschler and his collaborators are finding that they are reaching a stage where the ‘mechanics’ of the media they have been developing to facilitate the creation of interactive performances, along with their understanding of the theatrical potential of the software they have developed, are becoming sophisticated enough to allow it to become a genuine partner in the process of making their work. Finally, an understanding of the dialogue between performance and the increasingly complex new technologies they design specifically for use as a partner in their performance events is becoming such that the medium is in no way a controlling taskmaster.

Similarly, Troika Ranch’s more recent works are manifestly more complex and sophisticated than their earlier works, and manipulate the technology as much as the technology manipulates them. Their latest piece, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, an excerpt of which was shown at a recent festival in Monaco (2000), saw Dawn Stoppielo interacting with, and manipulating, both sound and constantly changing computer graphics and video images (composer Mark Coniglio, designer of the software systems used in Troika Ranch’s work, served as the narrator in this piece). A story worth telling was being told. Some of Susan Kozel and Kirk Woolford’s recent collaborations have also begun to realise the artistic goals that they had set out to achieve - for example Contours, an interactive work which saw Kozel and Ruth Gibson, clad in white, first lying on the floor then hanging in harnesses, generating through their movement a series of minimalist abstract patterns of light which played both upon their costumes and, progressively, on the floor, walls and roof of a vast semi-domed installation space. The work of Igloo (Ruth Gibson, Bruno Martelli, and Kirk Woolford) is also finding its feet and creating images of great beauty. The ‘art’ is winning over the technology.

But, many issues remain to be explored by dance artists as they engage with digitally generated, environments. Some of these are practical, others aesthetic,

others political. They range from concerns about the danger that the use of new technologies will progressively diminish that which makes dance particular, namely its focus on the corporeality of the human body, to issues raised by the almost utopian role accorded to interactive environments by many interactive artists and by equally idealistic commentators . In this short article I cannot address them all, but will concentrate on some of the, in general unresolved, issues raised by interactive environments as they pertain to the dialogue between the performing artist and new technologies.

Although not all digital art, or digital dance, is interactive, and nor should it be expected to be, within digital arts practice interactivity seems to hold an almost unchallenged place as the raison d’être of the genre. Digitally mediated artworks are developed in a system which is intrinsically non-linear. Coherent progressions of imagery can be subverted at the flip of a (metaphoric) switch as connecting links between the fragments which make up a work are intercepted and re-routed by a user’s or system’s action. Whilst in non- interactivedigital art this possibility is not made available at the point of display or performance (the form of the work, like that of most other artworks, is fixed), in interactive artwork the underlying structuring principles which characterise electronic media are exploited to the full. In an interactive artwork the possibility of changing the form of the work as it is viewed is made available to anyone who interacts physically with it. It celebrates and exploits the fluidity of meaning inherent in every artwork.

When viewers, or performers, are given direct input into the generation of the form a work takes, they become not merely a participant in a dialogue with the work, but responsible for the form those works take on a given occasion. To a significant extent the viewers co-author the works with which they engage. This it is suggested is necessarily a ‘good thing’. Roy Ascott, Head of CAiiA argued as long ago as 1988 that "system, process, behaviour and interaction are fundamental to the arts of our time" Many hail interactive art as a revival of the artistic dream of the 60s, in which participation, and the democratisation of art became the raison d’être of many artists’ practice.

The notion of ‘interactivity’, either as a concept or as an artistic tool, however, is by no means unproblematic. For example, interactive artists are often challenged to say just why interactive art differs from other kinds of art. All art, it is claimed, is necessarily interactive, the argument being that no work of art exists, as a work, until an interchange (or interaction) between viewer and work has taken place. It is only then that the artefact becomes a work, for it is only then that its forms, and some of its potential meanings are realised. In short, the interaction between work and viewer brings the ‘work’ to being.

This is, of course, inarguable. However, important though this kind of interaction in the arts is as an integral part of the viewer/listener experience, it is an overly

generalised use of the term ‘interactive’. Interactivity demands that some kind of dialogic exchange takes place. The non-interactive work does not respond to the viewers activity in kind. That is, the material form of the work does not change as a result of the viewer’s interaction. Rather the work submits itself to the viewer’s imaginative play, without relinquishing its material integrity.

And there is nothing the matter with that. The experience of seeing or hearing a work anew, of re-creating its meanings in accord with one’s own, ever-changing, perspective and interests lies at the heart of the artistic experience. But it does not make a work an interactive work. An interactive artwork is a work which responds directly to the behaviours of the viewers, or listeners, or ‘users’, and is momentarily transformed as a result of that process.

In the context of dance a further challenge has been forwarded. It is vigorously argued, and not without justification, that dance is, in and of itself, an interactive art. Performers necessarily interact with each other on the stage, and with the audience. Again this cannot be denied, for it is this responsiveness which makes live performances such exciting events to experience, both as performer and as viewer. But again, this kind of interactivity is not the interactivity which lies at the heart of interactive arts practice. The interaction allowed in a non-improvised choreographed dance work is strictly proscribed. The progression of the choreographic patterning is set by the choreographer and does not change in response to any minor spontaneous behaviours which might take place during the course of a performance. (That said, improvisation does count as interactive art in the sense used by interactive artists, inasmuch as performers must continuously be assessing and re-assessing the changes which occur as a result the dialogue which is taking place between themselves and their environment (the behaviour of their fellow performers). Indeed, improvisation could justifiably be cast as a mode of interactive art which is not predicated on the use of new technologies.)

Now these last two paragraphs have begun to reveal some of the difficulties of using the term interactive without qualification. We have seen that interaction takes place between an artwork and a viewer and between performer and performer, and all those others involved in the choreographic process. All these interactions come under the general umbrella of interaction in the arts. However, the interactivity with which interactive artists are centrally concerned is that between human beings and responsive open-ended computer systems. Experientially, for the interactor, some of the more complex systems have what appear to be ‘minds’ of their own, inasmuch as they respond with new, apparently unique, behaviours to the spontaneous behaviours of the performers.

All interactive digital artworks, even those which require the simplest forms of interactivity, are driven by a complex computer system which has been programmed to react in response to certain behaviours from the interacting user. The range of productive behaviour available to the viewer/performer varies — from the simple click of a mouse, touch of a screen, or pressure pad underfoot, to the

movement of the nervous system or flow of heat from the body, to full-body engagement in a three-dimensional environment. The freedom allowed to the interactor by the artist similarly varies. In some works the interactor is responsible for the generation, modulation and organisation of all the displayed materials, in others s/he serves merely to trigger a complex series of events pre-programmed by the artist. In still others a balance between the two is sought.

In many works, particularly those which are sited in three-dimensional spaces (e.g. an installation space, or a performance environment such as that generated by The Intelligent Stage), interacting performers or audience members might find that they have a highly complex role to play. In such environments the interactive interface comprises invisible electronic triggers which are embedded in the empty space in which the interactors move. A body or a limb which passes through one of these invisible triggers generates a response from the system, which is articulated through changes in the environment in which the interactor is immersed — a sound or a visual image might appear, or images already present might be modulated in response to the performers’ actions. In these works the performers/interactors must use full body movement to initiate responses from the work. In a performance work which is generated in a three dimensional electronically sensitised environment, the interactors appear to create the environment in which they perform. They become simultaneously performer and choreographer, composer and designer, co-authors of the work - or so it is claimed.

It is here that a political dimension enters the picture. It is often claimed that the interacting performer, or audience member constructs an interactive work. The artist hands their work over to the performer or interacting viewer, allowing the latter to imbue it with individual interpretations, to take over the ideas which drive the work, in short to become its author. Of course, this is not strictly true, either conceptually or materially. The interactor does not co-author the work, rather s/he authors a unique event, which is generated from previously authored materials. And the degree of control assumed by the performers is dependent upon the degree of choice allowed to them by the system, which was designed by the originating artist/s. The artist does not relinquish authorship, but retains a pre-determined degree of control over the freedoms allowed to the performer/viewer to modulate the form of the work in any single work-event.

I would venture to suggest that the 1960s dream of a democratic artworld, revived by the advent of interactive work, which was dominated by artworks which were participatory, and which handed creative authority to the viewer, is no closer to being achieved today than it ever has been. This is particularly evident in those performing arts which are engaging with interactive media. Many of the interactive dance companies focus on pre-rehearsed interactive performances which have only a minimum level of impromptu, or free, improvisation. Even improvisations are carefully rehearsed, the range of behaviours negotiated between the artists involved. The performers in interactive performances are only free within a set of

strictly constrained parameters. Although Palindrome offer unrehearsed audience interactivity in some of their pieces, and have integrated staged audience interactions into their works, these constitute only tiny elements of the whole. Evidently it is as important now for dance artists to control the nature of the performance events they generate as it ever was.

The question which might then be asked is — is not using interactive media in the context of performance a denial of the purpose of the medium? Surely the point of interactive media is to allow the viewer to share in the experience of making imagery, not simply passively to experience readymade artworks in which the artist manipulates their responses? What is the point of setting up a performance system which interacts in a specified way with an interactive environment to generate specified effects, for the delectation of viewers? Once again the creative authority which interactive media subverts is invested in the artist, and not in the viewer….and this is diametrically opposed to the spirit of interactive media.

These are good questions …but they emanate from a very particular context. The notion that it is necessarily a good thing for the artist to relinquish their authority and to hand it to the viewer, which seems to go hand in hand with interactive arts practice, is rooted in the political views which permeated the thinking of the 1960s. But it didn’t really work even then. (Witness the demise of the Happening, the gradual diminishment of live improvisation as a performance practice, Yvonne Rainer’s retreat into film-making.) And, tempting though it is to apply this view as a paradigm for interactive arts practice, it has to be admitted that any interactive artwork is articulated as a controlled digital environment. Few artists generate radically unstructured environments, for some level of structuring, guided by an artistic idea, has necessarily taken place before the work is sent into the public domain. Any interactive environment necessarily constitutes a set of pre-programmed events, however, small, which are actualised in accord with a system of rules. The latter are activated in response to certain conditions generated by performers/players/viewers as they explore the under-formed world they have entered. It is here, in this system of rules, that the bedrock of the structuring of the interactive artwork lies, inasmuch as it is this controls the output of the environment. It is the principles of this system which have to be understood by both artist and interactor if the ‘work’ of the work is to be engaged with. And, I would go so far as to suggest, it is here, as much as in the imagery, that the art of the work lies.

The viewers and/or performers, however, do not experience themselves as interacting with a set of rules. Rather, because interactive works are mediated in the ‘real’ world through visual imagery and sound, it is the environment generated by the system, which is imbued with a poetic, emotional and/or narrative ambience with which the interactor engages. Experientially the interactor is responding not to the system as system, although at a subliminal level this is precisely what they are doing, but to the nuances of the environment (the world) generated by the

system in response to their movement. As they move, their responses modulate

the configuration of the system, which causes the environment, and thus ambience of the environment to change. They respond to the new environment with different behaviour, which reconfigures the system again, which changes the ambience, and so the dialogue between work and performers continues. As this is taking place the interactor is unwittingly learning the rules of the system. But what is important to the interactors is not this, but that the work seems to be breathing, living, flowing, and actively engaging in a intricate dance with them. The result, a genuine interaction between interactor and artwork, one in which the ‘work’ of the work is emerges through a physical, emotional, psychological conversation between the interactor and the work. Much of the ‘art’ of the open-ended interactive artwork lies in its ability to initiate and sustain a two-way conversation with its viewers. It is this which distinguishes it from non-interactive artworks.

Now this seems to imply that I am advocating the primacy of open-ended interactive works over more closed, or even non-interactive works using new technologies. This could not be further from the truth. Indeed as a choreographer working with interactive media in non-theatrical spaces I continually experience a tension between the two positions. As a child of the ‘60s my instincts lead me to want to generate open-ended interactive environments which viewers can explore in their own way, my own role being over as soon as the work is released into the public domain. But at the same time, the ‘old-fashioned choreographer’ within me wants to have more than a little control of the forms and rhythms that the actualisations of the work take.

That this latter position is incompatible with the goals of the open-ended interactive artwork is evidenced in a comment made by Simon Biggs, creator of Halo an interactive installation upon which I collaborated, and with which I created an improvised performance piece (Halo in Performance). Halo in Performance shaped the responses of the environment, revealing many of the subtleties inherent in the installation which were rarely revealed when ‘casual’ interactors engaged with it. The improvisation was set up so as to allow the performers to mobilise and consolidate the rhythms of the behaviour of the installation imagery as they performed. (It was also designed in such a way that the live and virtual performers became equal partners in the interactive engagement, neither one appearing to control the behaviour of the other.) Biggs noted in conversation that "as a piece Halo in Performance did not work" because, although "…the work (Halo) had never looked so good ….that was not the point." The ‘point’ of Halo was the experience the viewer gained from being immersed in the ambience of the installation, not that they experienced others shaping up a world for the viewer to view from outside. I cannot but agree with Biggs, but my dilemma remains. As a choreographer I like to generate and refine one of the many dialogues it is possible to have with interactive environments through rehearsed interactions

(performance events), but, at the same time, want the interactive environment to be left open to others to bring their ideas to bear on it.

Ultimately, of course, both performances in interactive environments, and open-ended interactive spaces with no performance context have a role to play in the development of this genre of choreographic practice. And it must be remembered that the art is young. Choreographers are still feeling their way, are still finding out what it is that they are working with, and what they want to do with it. Some will turn to making environments which encourage spontaneous choreographically shaped behaviour. Others will create performances which are designed to shape the interactive environment with which they are engaging in a particular way. Both will make a valuable contribution to the choreographic world in which we move