Enhancing Choreographic Objects (EChO)

ENHANCING CHOREOGRAPHIC OBJECTS (EChO).

How can one capture the 'intelligences underpinning dance making' (Wayne McGregor) in order to communicate them to a wide public? To answer this question, many of the world's leading choreographers are turning to the possibilities of computer generated imagery and interactive digital technologies. The result is a new genre of digital adjuncts to dance making called 'Choreographic Objects' made to both enhance, and to illustrate, their creative process. Choreographic Objects are providing insights into the valuable knowledge that choreographers and dancers create when they investigate form and structure through movement in the context of making dances. The result is that 'choreographic thinking' is becoming available not only for the purpose of educating audiences, but also in ways that scientists and philosophers can study, architects and designers can utilize, and other artists can draw upon.

'Enhancing Choreographic Objects' (EChO) is an innovative project that uses the results of previous AHRC funded research in a practical manner. In the previous research, social scientists were able to show how the social relations involved in the production of Choreographic Objects were important in shaping them, highlighting both positive and negative potentials generated by the context and process of their construction. The social scientists were able to draw on theories of embodied, skilled and practiced-based knowing, and of its translation into representational media to illuminating effect. This (previous) project demonstrated that social science has a key role in enhancing the awareness of the makers of Choreographic Objects and thereby ensuring more effective outcomes from their endeavours. We will now transfer the results of that research to professional artists and programmers during the construction of a Choreographic Object called the Choreographic Language Agent (CLA) Public Installation.

The CLA currently exists as software used by leading UK choreographer Wayne McGregor for generating and investigating choreographic ideas in the studio. McGregor and his dancers use the CLA as a sketchpad in which they can quickly assemble, animate and share complex three-dimensional drawings to take as inspiration for movement generation into the rehearsal studio. The main aim of EChO is to apply the framework developed in the previous research to evaluate how the CLA represents and transfers the creative strengths and skills of dance, and then collaboratively feed back this assessment to the design team building an enhanced CLA for public viewing. This CLA Public Installation will be displayed in a major London exhibition space to encourage wide engagement with the possibilities of choreographic thinking during the creation of a new work by Wayne McGregor | Random Dance (WM|RD) that is set to premiere in October 2013.

In EChO, academics will collaborate with the company (WM|RD), digital artists, the exhibition space (Wellcome Collection) and the performance venue (Sadler's Wells) to produce an interactive experience that communicates the thinking and understanding generated in creating dance to a wide public. EChO will thereby utilise the outcomes of the previous AHRC funded research and apply them as academic knowledge transfer directly to institutions whose core aim is to increase public understanding of the value of dance, and of art and science's creative interface. The project will result in a new Choreographic Object tailored to the specific qualities of dance as knowledge creation, and to its public display.

The award will allow the development of an unforeseen pathway to impact emergent from previous AHRC funded research. The primary outcome of the project will be the collaborative production of the Choreographic Language Agent (CLA) Public Installation. This installation will be exhibited by project Partner Wellcome Collection who is committed to collaborating on a major public engagement project around Wayne McGregor | Random Dance's (WM|RD) next new company work. The CLA Public Installation will be part of this engagement project in which the creative practice of WM|RD is made accessible to the public. An integrated Implementation Package will be developed ensuring its post-award exploitation in both academic and non-academic domains.

Wellcome Collection is located in central in London. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. The inclusion of the CLA installation in the Wellcome Collection display will ensure it is experienced by large numbers of the UK public. It will be promoted and marketed by a hugely experienced and well resourced organisation whose remit is to help the public 'explore the connections between science, life and art in the past, present and future'. EChO will thus contribute directly to social and cultural life by providing those who experience the CLA with lasting insight into a valuable cultural form and what it offers beyond entertainment. It will support and enhance the work of a major UK dance company, assisting with their goals of raising public awareness, growing new and informed audiences, and demonstrating the knowledge creation potential of choreography. The CLA installation at Wellcome Collection will generate new possibilities for the realisation of choreography's potential to contribute not just to the artistic life of the nation, but also related sectors such as health and well-being (see BUPA report "Keep Dancing" 2011).

Primary Partner WM|RD is one of the UK's most successful dance organisations. It is known worldwide for both the quality of its productions, and the innovative and interdisciplinary creative processes behind those works. McGregor is Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet, as well as the UK government's Youth Dance Champion and has just been awarded a CBE. With its wide range of international and national partners, huge outreach projects such as Big Dance 2012 (involving thousands of school children), and funding to develop dance education resources that are, like the CLA, informed by collaborations with science, and an on going world wide tour reaching 95,000 people per year, the EChO project will benefit from wide publicity for and engagement with the installation. Add to this recently aired films such as Channel 4's South Bank Show that emphasised the research into creativity that lies behind McGregor's choreography, and it is clear the organisation is uniquely positioned to ensure impact.

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance (WM|RD) is company-in-residence at project Partner's Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. EChO will benefit Sadler's Wells significantly by enhancing audience engagement with and interest in McGregor's creation work - drawing newly informed audiences into the theatre. In addition, there will be a high-profile public seminar hosted by Sadler's Wells, and timed to catch the interest around McGregor's premier in October 2013, achieving a prominent public profile for EChO and for knowledge transfer from academic research to a successful industry.

The CI deLahunta is also a Principal Researcher for a newly funded European Culture Cooperation project titled LABO21 involving four internationally renowned performing arts organisations in Belgium, UK, Netherlands and Croatia. The EChO and LABO21 schedules coincide and this overlap will be exploited by including discussion of the public installation in LABO21 meetings and reports, providing a high level of international dissemination of the knowledge exchange developments of EChO.