Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts Honours

School

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)

Faculty

Faculty of Education and Arts

Abstract

Projections are becoming an increasingly common part of contemporary dance performance, however, I believe that choreographers do not always integrate the media to form a dependent synergy. My research addresses the principal question: What are the factors that indicate that there is a critical relationship (synergy) between projection, including art work, moving images or light and the dancer in a contemporary dance performance? A brief history explains the background and development of lighting technology, through to film and more recently motion capture technology. Through sources of pre-existing literature and my interpretation of video excerpts of contemporary dance, I explore various techniques and effects generated by projections. The examples are categorised by three relationships; firstly the dancer initiating a response from the visual imagery; secondly, the visual imagery stimulating a response from the dancer and; thirdly, where there is a connection between the dancer and the projected imagery that is only visible to the audience. Techniques such as layering of images directly onto the body, using motion capture technology to project digitalised light patterns onto a dancer and the space, as well as using projections as a backdrop are all explored for evidence of an interdependent synergy.

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