Emerging: Live-digital gestures in action

This paper discusses some findings from practice-based-research into digital dance performance making and offers a perspective of Erin Manning’s ‘sensing bodies’ as a methodology for rethinking the relationship between live and digital dancing bodies. The thrust of the paper explores the potential for experiencing a more intimate exchange between real-time image processing technologies and movement. Using Manning’s concepts as a framework the author discusses how a dancer’s understanding of moving in such environments can move towards an attentive awareness, which allows for a more intimate exchange with emerging live and digital gestures. Findings from the author’s research reveals the significance of those perceptual shifts in attention; where media-rich environments open up rather than close down the ‘potentiality’ for live and digital gestures to transform as they continually emerge in the moment of performance.