Alisdair was in the studio from 18th to 28th June 2019, working with a group of dancers to develop a new work A.I.D. (Artificially Intelligent Dances).
Here, he offers a reflection on this period in residence and the exciting development of this idea:
As part of my Resident Directorship at Lucy Guerin Inc in 2019 I have been looking into designing computer programs as a system to propagate and disseminate choreographic ideas. For two weeks in June I was joined by a group of 9 dancers and together as a proof of concept we prototyped a set of sentence generators based on improvisation tasks and choreographic instruction which we used as an aid for practicing group improvisations.
This kind of technology offers a new way, at least in my experience (being aware of Cunningham and Forsythe’s work among others, in similar fields), to engage and collaborate with dancers. I should probably mention that I have worked with generative systems in musical composition for a long time now, so it’s simultaneously new to me and also familiar and seamless to imagine working this way with the moving and performing body.
There is a really tangible difference with dance though, separating my body and decision making from the process of creation and genesis by leaving my conceptual self in programmatic form subtracting ego, identity, affectation and actual physicality from the outcome of danced and performed ideas.
If you would like to read more of Alisdair’s thoughts on this project’s development, see images or watch footage from the his sharing hosted at WXYZ Studios on 28th June, please visit his website.
During these weeks, Alisdair collaborated with Chris Chua, Rachael Huf, Jaala Jensen, Tahlia Klugman, Miles Lee, Joseph Newton-Keogh, Angela Rae and Georgia Rudd.
Images: Alisdair Macindoe