instant online collaboration: just add dance

josephine g. dorado

[email protected] +1.646.228.9100 http://funksoup.com

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Instant Online Collaboration: Just Add Dance

Vision

While there are many virtual world programs, there is no other program or methodology

which leverages theater and dance specifically towards virtual cultural exchange and identity

exploration, nor is there any other existing initiative that leverages a shared virtual space to

realize a body of cross-cultural interplay frameworks based on the common language of

dance, games, and theater. Given the state of migration worldwide and the growing

globalization and cultural exchange made possible by pervasive technologies such as the Web,

this project has the potential for far-reaching impact not only for the field of dance and dance

scholarship, but for international youth development, cultural integration, education and

other arts initiatives as well.

Background

Cultural exchange is at the heart of international conflict resolution, yet the experience of

cultural exchange through traveling is not accessible for many youth. When I was awarded a

Fulbright grant in 2003, the experience was transformative, both personally and

professionally, and the value of learning about another culture was something that I wished to

pass on to others.

In 2005, the seed of an idea developed. Based on my previous background in dance and

performing arts, technology and the hybrid platform of networked performance (theater in a

virtual space which enables performers in geographically dispersed locations to perform

together), I initiated the Kidz Connect project, which is a virtual cultural exchange program

that connects youth in different countries through creative collaboration and performance in

virtual worlds.

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The backbone of Kidz Connect is based on dance, digital storytelling and improvisational

performance as frameworks for online collaboration and cross-cultural exchange. Through

these frameworks, which encourage active listening and interaction, we can build richer

online rapport, allowing participants to instantly connect and cooperate regardless of

geographical location or previous experience with performance or digital media.

In 2006, the Kidz Connect pilot project was launched between students in New York City and

Amsterdam, Netherlands. Through collaborations with Imagine IC, Polytechnic University

and Waag Society, students in New York connected and created with students in Amsterdam

through movement, improvisational performance and digital storytelling in Teen Second Life.

Guided by artists and educators from theatre and digital arts, students learned skills like

Playback Theatre (improvisational storytelling technique), dance improvisation, digital

storytelling, and 3D modeling. In Teen Second Life, they met and collaborated to build a

hybrid virtual city combining aspects of both New York and Amsterdam. Within that common

space, they created a performance that simultaneously occurred live and online.

The project continued with a program in 2008 involving students at the Patel Conservatory in

Tampa, Florida and students at the IVKO Montessori School in Amsterdam. The students

wrote, created and performed a live show in Teen Second Life, learning about each other’s

culture in the process through music, dance, digital art and/or storytelling within this virtual

world.

The program has since then taken other manifestations, each tailored to meet the needs of the

youth community and engage the students in a creative way. In 2009, we realized a project

with teens from the Macondo refugee community on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria, via a

collaboration with Cabula 6 and Tanzquartier Wien. The project, called Macondo Dance

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Connect, was a mixed reality performance project that involved bringing kids together from

the Macondo refugee community using dance, mapping, storytelling and Teen Second Life

(see Image 1 below).

Image 1. Macondo Dance Connect: youth from the Macondo refugee community create dances based on their heritages and map them to their avatars, exploring different cultural identities. The video

screens in the background display the students dancing in ‘real life’. The mixed reality experience of virtual+physical bridges the gap between physical, digital and its mixed possibilities.

The Macondo Dance Connect project required reaching out to the Macondo refugee

community on the outskirts of Vienna, where the students originated from a myriad of

cultures including Chechnya, Cameroon, Syria, Pakistan, Chile and Iran. The objective of the

Macondo Dance Connect project was to re-connect youth from the refugee community to

their native cultures by allowing them to creatively discover their own history, current living-

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circumstances and neighborhood, while allowing them to explore the nature of cultural

identity through creative interplay in virtual space. Students created dances based on their

heritages and mapped them to their avatars, exploring different cultural identities in the

process.

A continuing Kidz Connect series of programs has grown through the seeds planted during

my initial Fulbright experience, and this experience continues to be an inspiration as I

continue to develop frameworks for cross-disciplinary cultural exchanges through theatrical

and dance structures in mixed reality space. The affordances of games and virtual world

spaces such as avatars – digital representations of ourselves – and a shared virtual

environment have been incorporated. Avatar role-playing games are utilized so that students

can create alternate virtual versions of themselves, perhaps alternate realities where they are

superheroes or villains or some other character by which they extend themselves and discover

different facets (or facades) of identity and cultural constructs.

The students become active authors in the fabrication of their own identities: They play the

game of constructing who they are. Role-playing and other theater and dance-based activities

become the platform by which students can work together. Following structured parameters

gives the group a goal yet frees them up to be creative as well. (see Image 2 on the next page).

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Image 2. A student's alternate avatar

Activities involving game-like activities that are rule or task-based, when paired with

storytelling and movement, translate to a shared mixed reality space optimally. Mixed reality

refers to the merging of the real with the virtual space, in which the boundaries between

reality and surreality, between fiction and nonfiction, are blurred. Using a combination of

live performance and video projection within virtual worlds, the layers between material

(physical) and immaterial (virtual) identity are fused and confused. Through the use of

avatars, movement and role-playing, we can explore our differences and sameness, enabling

us to expand our notions of evolving identity, making it dynamic and creative. The virtual

space, at times, acts as both a reflection of reality as well as an absurd interpretation of it,

stretching the horizon of our perceptions while revealing the subtext underneath.

Pitting the physical realities of actual bodies in real space and real time, against the fantastic

surrealities of a concurrent virtual existence, we can also juxtapose human with nonhuman or

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superhuman movement. We can see our physical surroundings set against a virtual

neighborhood of our own making – questioning what creates the culture that we live in, and

ultimately, questioning what makes us human. By mixing realities in which the physical and

virtual are present simultaneously and incorporating cultural issues and theatrical form, we

collectively engage participants in the current culture and identity debates enveloping a

rapidly changing world.

My research continues along this path, focusing on creative collaboration and cultural

exchange in mixed reality space through interactive, game-based approaches to dance and

theater. Play is at the heart of each activity. There are games, dances and folk theater at the

heart of every culture, and this becomes the common language. Creativity is supported and

participants are encouraged to contribute their ideas as co-authors of their own learning and

identity.

Recently, I developed and hosted an #IdentityMashup lab at CultureHub in New York City in

conjunction with Seoul Institute for the Arts. The #IdentityMashup lab was a mixed reality

presentation, in which participants created (dis)embodied stories based on Jung’s shadow

archetype, and explored identity through a mashup of avatar roleplaying, livestreaming and

movement performance. Short stories based on shadow work were told through an avatar

whose face was mapped to a live video stream of the participants’ actual faces, creating hybrid

physical-online identities that were simultaneously distorted and revealing. Participants in

NYC shared improvisational dance movements with participants in Seoul based on stories

both groups had submitted and brought to life (see Image 3 on the next page).

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Image 3. #IdentityMashup lab: participants in NYC and Seoul share improvisational dance movements while storytellers’ faces are mapped to shadow avatars, creating hybrid physical-online

identities that were simultaneously distorted and revealing.

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It was stunning to see the creativity and camaraderie explored across cultures and countries,

where groups of strangers transformed themselves into a hunting hawk, an operating room

complete with vital signs monitor, and an all inclusive organic machine riffing on words

derived from the writing exercise.

Many countries are experiencing an influx of immigrants, and it is a unique and apropos time

for this kind of program. Increasing immigration corresponds to increasing issues of

displacement, possible conflict and integration. Cross-cultural interplay is not a luxury – it is

a necessity, and creating the frameworks for this is an essential step.

When we creatively explore our personal histories and current circumstances, we question the

nature of reality, cultural identity and home. Mixing realities and integrating movement

exploration challenges pre-conceived notions of cultural identity, opening the door to

fantastic tales as well as a grounding sense of empowerment as we journey through virtual

and real interpretations of migration and integration, inspired by our past as well as future

identities.

instant online collaboration: just add dance

Documents

background cultural

improvisational performance

digital storytelling

dance improvisation

dance scholarship

field of dance

dance vision

digital arts