I have been acting as the University of Colorado's Teaching with Technology
Liaison for the Theatre and Dance Department, and have been active in two
specific projects:
1) a server-based performance review/critique/feedback system whereby film
documents of student work (dance and theatre) are made available for close
scrutiny by faculty and students with the capability of intra-document
annotations and editing, ongoing exchange outside of actual studio time,
and filing and preservation for career dossiers.
2) very stimulating exchanges with members of the Computer Science faculty
on software development having to do with automated "shufflers" of animated
movement material and machine learning of stylistic parameters. We'll
present a paper at the IDAT in Arizona in February.
I've also been responsible for sponsoring workshops and lectures
encouraging our faculty to think into their habitual teaching strategies
for ways to apply computer technology. Though we have complained regularly
that the gridlock surrounding compression of film documents into useable
file sizes and general desktop capabilities for playback, with the
encouragement (financial as well as general cheerleading) of our
university, we're getting more and more engaged in the task of educating
the computer makers/movers about what they can do that will lead to genuine
quality improvements in our work rather than mutely following the lead of
all the bells and whistles.
I'm really looking forward to hearing about many interesting ideas at IDAT,
but especially about the extent to which the real-time/real-space/real-body
dance practitioners (I'm firmly in that camp) are learning how to actively
shape the future of the technology.
David Capps
Assistant Professor of Dance
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0261
(303) 492-3099