Techno beats

Digital arts add several dimensions to dance forms, as a contemporary movements arts festival shows.

Making their way swiftly onto the stage, digital arts in cultural performances often lend a colourful dimension, bringing together sounds, sights and lights at the touch of a button. The ambience becomes more inclusive, as the audience can experience a variety of these elements at once.

This month, a contemporary movement arts festival in Bengaluru highlights some of the structural changes that technology has introduced to traditional forms of dance. The Attakkalari India Biennial 2009, from February 6-15 at various locations in Bengaluru, will play with emerging technologies and interactivity.

While “interactivity” is not a new medium of communication with the audience — it has, since the time of the ancient “nautanki”, been woven into music, theatre and dance performances — it is always interesting how each show adapts to its audience.

The artistic director for Attakkalari, Jayachandran Palazhy, explains that in a few of the 21 performances from 11 countries — Korea, Switzerland, Finland, Germany, Portugal and of course, India, to name a few — the troupes have improvised to offer a more 3-D feel.

“To give a small example of interactivity,” says Palazhy, “for the opening at Chowdiah Hall, we are animating the location. The performance starts in the pathway, with huge projections on the theatre walls, drummers moving around, and over 60 performers. Then we move to the foyer, which is designed like a temple. The whole location maps the city, bringing together different time zones and landscapes.”

While non-linear tactics are being used to extract sounds, visual projections, lights and other elements in a performance from a single source, the rate of change, and the possibilities, have immensely multiplied in the last few years. “It’s more up-to-date with the current way of thinking of young people. The way we construct thought has changed,” Palazhy explains.

Dance troupes from different countries have varying ways of using technology to their creative best. While sets from Korea and Japan tend to be minimalistic, the Germans will deploy a fair amount of architectural and aesthetic splendour. The synchronisation of the piece from the USA , meanwhile, is extremely in-depth, like an “X-ray”.

The Attakkalari home production, for instance — Chronotopia — sees a wide range of landscapes produced through digital arts as a representation of an unsettled time, where experiences and memories are altered due to wars and reckless globalisation. Movements are a mix of dance forms, improvised from Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, martial arts and Kallari.