Creating Visual Literatures for Dance: Interactive Media Connecting Dance, Science, and Discourse

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

REPOSTED FROM OSUDANCE WEBSITE:
Collaboration with William Forsythe, Norah Zuniga Shaw and Maria Palazzi.
Renowned choreographer William Forsythe has teamed with OSU’s Department of Dance and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) to research and develop a new interactive online learning environment for one of his exceptional choreographic works, One Flat Thing, reproduced (OFTR).

The project analyzes Forsythe’s choreography systems as templates for creative problem solving that can be applied to other practices and fields. For instance, utilizing the multiple visual literatures provided on the site, an architect, mathematician or engineer might encounter applications that bring their own practices into new perspective. At the heart of this creative enterprise with interactive digital media is Forsythe's desire to have dance seen as a field of activity that has broad impact and to reinforce the fundamental idea that creative leaps in all fields often come about from the transference of concepts from one field to another. The web project's intent is not to have users make a virtual "Forsythe-like" dance, but, to be a catalyst for creative analysis in dance and in other areas of practice.

Co-Creative Directors Norah Zuniga Shaw (Director of Dance and Technology) and Maria Palazzi (Director of ACCAD) have been working closely with Forsythe and his company since 2005 to research OFTR and create rigorously analytical yet evocative scorings of its choreographic structures. More than 15 graduate students in design, computer science, dance, and visual art have taken part in the research and production process. The project is currently in the midst of the 15-month production timeline with a projected launch at the Wexner Center in January of 2009.