Bodies and Technologies: The implications of technology in dance

This chapter explores technology’s role as a key creative agent within digital dance performance making. Using the author’s own embodied experiences of moving in media-rich environments, the tensions that can exist in the companionship of dance and technology are offered as a point of departure for exploring positive change in the ways in which we produce, engage with, and understand the act of moving. As part of a heritage, where the body is both the focus of exploration and the realisation of an artwork, the potential for engendering further connections through embodied experience via new technologies is explored. To do this the author draws upon a recent “live-digital” (Francksen 2015) performance piece titled Modulation_one (Francksen and Atkinson 2014). Using this as a case study, the author offers insights into the creative process and discusses the impact technology has had on the production of movement. Furthermore, by fore-fronting the experiences and somatic sensibilities of the dancer as key, this chapter explores how an appreciation of digital practices can help to tap into a more kinaesthetic and embodied experience of dancing within technological environments.