• TALKrAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: Mirrors/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: Mirrors/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: You Fade to Light/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: You Fade to Light/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: You Fade to Light/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: You Fade to Light/rAndom works Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: Study For A Mirror/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: Study For A Mirror/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist
  • PERFORMANCEWayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY Image: courtesy the artist
  • TALKrAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist rAndom International: Audience/DECODE project Image: courtesy the artist

Event Info:

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance

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Wayne McGregor | Random Dance

For two weeks, the London-based dance company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is pursuing a creative residency at EMPAC, investigating tools, ideas, and visual design concepts for their current work-in-progress. Their work involves collaborations in research on the cognition of choreography and the development of new directions in scenography. To open up the process to our audience, talks and a panel discussion by collaborators, research partners, and Artistic Director Wayne McGregor are happening throughout the residency period. At the end of their stay, the company will perform ENTITY, a magnificent work of dance, sound and video projection.

Random Dance Schedule:

Dates/TimesLocationDuration
TALK
Wednesday February 17, 2010
7:00 PM — Dr. Philip Barnard: Cognition, Emotion and Action Theater 60 min.
Tuesday February 23, 2010
10:00 AM — Random Dance: Company Class

Come take class with the dancers of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance! A ballet-based technique class open to intermediate/advanced dancers. Class size is limited. Please reserve a spot by calling the box office 518.276.3921.		 Studio 1 2 hours
6:00 PM — Dr. Philip Barnard, Scott deLahunta, Wayne McGregor: Panel discussion on R-Research Studio 1 60 min.
Wednesday, February 24 2010
10:00 AM — Random Dance: Company Class

Come take class with the dancers of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance! A ballet-based technique class open to intermediate/advanced dancers. Class size is limited. Please reserve a spot by calling the box office 518.276.3921.		 Studio 1 2 hours
7:00 PM — rAndom International: Talk on real-time reactive systems - Random Dance Theater 60 min.
PERFORMANCE
Friday, February 26 2010
8:00 PM — Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY

» Buy Tickets		 Theater 60 min.
Saturday, February 27 2010
8:00 PM — Wayne McGregor | Random Dance: ENTITY

» Buy Tickets 		Theater 60 min.

On creative research

Hélène Lesterlin
Curator, Dance

zu image
Image: R-Research in action


Image: Wayne McGregor | Random Dance ENTITY

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is a hub of inquiry, activity, creativity, collaboration and learning. While maintaining a fast and furious pace of artistic output, in parallel the company bridges into scientific research. ENTITY is the evidence for the sheer quality of the choreography and performance, but more hidden, and just as fascinating are the research activities animating the thought processes creating the performances.

In Wayne McGregor’s work, classically trained and hyper-kinetic dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and braininess of his own contemporary sensibility. Often working with multiple streams of research to inspire the movement invention, McGregor immerses himself and his dancers in information, which at first glance might not seem obvious sources for the making of stage-based dance. With a powerful interest in creativity and the scientific study of human movement and the mind, topics range from artificial intelligence, embodied cognition, memory, mental illness, to distributed systems of action and reaction. (read more)

In 2002, McGregor and arts researcher Scott deLahunta, began to organize projects with scientists in which both the choreography and the scientific research would have tangible outcomes from the partnerships. Starting from meetings and conversations, the links with the scientific community deepened, resulting in extensive research projects with dance works created alongside. Premiering in 2004, AtaXia was Wayne McGregor | Random Dance’s first work that explicitly had a research project associated with it, dealing with the illness that causes degenerative breakdown of the body and mind. ENTITY is the second such work. The performances are not descriptive of the research: the information exchange between the artists and scientists has a more subtle, and potentially more lasting impact on the thinking, communication, and structuring of their work.

» Read More

In 2008, the R-Research department was established within the company to manage the evolution of projects including the development of systems and tools used not only in the creation process for new works but also for the analysis of choreographic thinking and moving. In a current research project undertaken at UC San Diego with Dr. David Kirsh (Interactive Cognition Lab), the dance company worked with the researcher to investigate “distributed choreographic cognition” as an example of multi-modal cooperation and coordination in a group cognitive process. How do a group of people create a dance work together; all intuitively understanding the tasks at hand, remembering previous tasks, consciously processing the instructions and experiences, and embodying them to refine the end “product”, the dance? It is a dynamic system involving memory, body position, gesture, kinetic energy, communication, creativity - in essence, the choreographic process is a visible example of what Dr. Kirsh calls “distributed cognition”.

EMPAC Residency

In a two-week residency at EMPAC, Wayne McGregor | Random Dance continues to build tools and to develop new partnerships. In two different venues, the company is at once investigating the creation of a choreographic software agent and also working on design concepts for a new work.

The company is evolving “Choreographic Thinking Tools” with Dr. Phil Barnard, of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Cambridge, UK), to be used in the making of McGregor’s new dance work for the company, as well as to create a tool useful and available to choreographers in general. These “tools” will be made in answer to the questions: What is going on in a choreographer’s mind when making a dance? Can these processes be mapped and analyzed? Is it possible to make a software agent that could add to a choreographer’s capacities?

The design-collective rAndom International, are also in residence and working in parallel to the research team. They are creating the scenography for the new dance work to premiere in November 2010. Best known for large-scale public installations combining technology, media, design and art, they play with real-time reactive systems, engendering an intuitive body-based experience for the viewer. In their latest work, they have used materials such as newly developed OLED lights and mirrors mounted on sensitiveswivels that react to a viewer’s movement.

The results of the research conducted here at EMPAC will not be visible for many months or possibly years, as this is just one stop in an ongoing process. However, the talks and panel discussions that are open to the public throughout the residency period will open a window onto how this remarkable company can assimilate knowledge developed in radically different fields: to create powerful performance works, scientific research outcomes, creative tools, and share insights into how dance works are made.

Hélène Lesterlin
Curator, Dance
EMPAC



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