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38-39) that the technological process of mediatising performance created the notion
of liveness in a way that was not possible before video recording technology,
digitally enhanced dance performance generated new thought regarding the notion
of the 'virtual' and the need to disassociate it from a purely digital, technological
definition. A new conceptual model for valuing and discussing the work was needed
that could then be fed back into discussions of dance work that does not use digital
augmentation technologies. It may also be that, since the 'problem of reality' has
already been dealt with in live performance such as dance and theatre in response to
works created using digital technology, that these practices may have a quite specific
contribution to make to this debate.
However, despite the elegant synthesis of the term 'virtual' into a concept that
can deal equally with physical and digital contexts, there remains a sense of anxiety
about how digital technology impacts on the embodied movement experience that
is fundamental to dance. What is the dramaturgy of the digital in relation to live
performance? If virtuality, in Manning's sense of the incipiency of movement,
can exist simultaneously in physical and digital domains, as in the case of dance
performance that is augmented by digital image 'overlays', how are the sensory
disjunctures between the two kinds of performance (physical body and digital
image)
2
rendered meaningful?
Baugh describes the anxiety created by the introduction of pre-digital tech-
nologies into performance forms, such as dance, that are primarily focussed on
embodied, movement experience. “These technologies required a considerable
increase in the technical infrastructure of the theatre and a parallel development of
new skills amongst the technical staff. Both of these were seen to detract from the
real relationship that it was felt should properly exist between actor, audience and
theatre architecture
The stage, increasingly filled with extravagant and extensive
scenery, required so much technology and so many staff to manage the scenery, that
new plays were being written to serve and exploit the technical possibilities
:::
:::
”
(Baugh
2005
: 180-181).
The concern about a kind of 'incompatibility' between humans and digital
technology seems somewhat magnified in dance. As an art-form that has always
celebrated the moving, physical body, dancers have expressed concern about the
potential 'disembodiment' of the art form through the introduction of digital
technology (Gunduz
2012
: 309). Curiously, this fear does not seem to extend to the
notion of using digital technology as a means of generating movement material, nor
is it as concerning in environments where digital and biological are overlayed, with
the latter retaining both physical prominence (value) and/or serving as the dominant,
or driving force within the circuit.
Whether in the form of hydraulic lifts and sunken floors, lighting effects or video
projection, 'theatrical deceit' is a familiar part of the repertoire of performance expe-
rience. However, the use of digital imagery such as interactive systems as integral
2
We refer primarily here to digital images, however a similar argument can be made for digital
sonification within dance performances.
