Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, from 6 to 8 October
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IN HIS book Homo Deus, writer Yuval Noah Harari asks: “Are organisms just algorithms and is life just data processing?” Is it possible that the human mind could one day be downloaded onto a computer chip?
This existential, unsettling idea is key to Anti-Body, a new dance work from the Alexander Whitley Dance Company, which has its London premiere next week.
At a recent technical rehearsal, I saw the piece’s three dancers standing behind screens. Motion-capture sensors strapped to their bodies pick up their routines and the movement data is transmitted to a computer.
The technology, more commonly used in video games, creates a series of visuals on the screens. These range from 3D cell-like images to human avatars, all shifting in real time in response to the dancers’ movements. It is stunning and technologically impressive, with nothing pre-recorded – should a dancer trip, the images will also take a tumble.
The dancers’ control of the visuals is a nod to our increasing reliance on technology and how this blurs the line between the physical and digital worlds. “Our actions take effect far beyond the immediate presence of our bodies,” explains Alexander Whitley, the work’s choreographer and artistic director.
With billions of us keeping a smartphone semi-permanently in our back pocket (or at least within easy reach), the internet is always on hand to answer our queries or sate our appetite for information. Who or what are we becoming, asks Whitley, in a hybrid, post-human, real/virtual world?
“Anti-Body is concerned with discovering what motion capture can offer art, creativity and selfexpression”
His dance company has turned to science and technology before through works like Uncanny Valley, drawing on the idea from robotics that objects appearing almost, but not quite, like humans produce feelings of eeriness in us all.
Then there was 8 Minutes, named after the time it takes for light from the sun to reach Earth, which explored the possibility of explaining advanced concepts through movement.
The way technology reshapes our world may be unsettling, but Anti-Body feels more positive than that, concerned with discovering what motion capture and other emerging methods can offer art, creativity and self-expression.
Whitley says he also wants to explore the way the dancers’ movements influence the visuals produced on the screens: for him, the show is about what motivates people to think about living beyond the material confines of the body. Welcome to the transhuman.
In one routine, a dancer remotely controls two cell-like images that appear on one screen. The visuals evolve as the cells are replaced by increasingly human-like avatars.
Anti-Body is an ambitious project, but the message may get a little lost in translation, with no dialogue or subtitles to guide the audience. But what I saw was a rehearsal, and I was told the show may open with a passage from Homo Deus (though not necessarily the one I cited above) to help set the scene.
Whitley, however, is unfazed by the prospect that the audience will set about making their own interpretation of his dance piece. “There will always be ambiguity in interpretation when working through dance,” he says.
While the dancing is obviously impressive, the movements are less showy and technically demanding than those you would typically find in a traditional ballet or modern dance performance.
Perhaps Whitley isn’t really that concerned with showing off his choreography credentials by putting his dancers through their paces. After all, if the simplicity of the movements lets the screen visuals do the work, Whitley is then free to concentrate on conveying his messages.
So, if next week’s audiences have modern and adventurous tastes, they should enjoy the choreography. But the big draw for many will be the piece’s technological feats. I found myself drawn to the “dancing” visuals more than to the talented physical dancers themselves.
As for what Anti-Body means, it will take someone with a vivid imagination (or deep knowledge of post-human theory) to walk away with a new take on transhumanism or how the digital world will impinge on their life. As a more traditional dance fan, I think I will stick to Swan Lake.
