Performance and Technology

Dance technology and interactive performance have a long and rich history at Arizona State University. Beginning in the 1970s, former faculty member Gram DeFreitus worked with engineer Mark Goldstein to create a system that could sense light and dark and send signals to an analog synthesizer. With this system a dancer could move in front of a video camera and create music. This work was continued by former faculty member David Gregory in 1979, this time using Apple computers, and augmented by faculty member Rob Kaplan several years later assisted by computer science student Rob Lovell.

John D. Mitchell joined the Department of Dance in 1990. He brought his experience in creating interactive environments for stage performances at the University of South Florida. He teamed up with Lovell in the early ’90s to create media-rich interactive performances that were centered on the activities and decisions of performers on stage. These performer-centered media environments became known as the Intelligent Stage and form the basis for the technology in the Department’s Dance Studio Theater today.

Since 2000, research within the department has included the creation of multi-site distributed dance works leading to the creation of the Association for Dance and Performance Telematics (ADaPT), an international association of universities and arts associations dedicated to research and critical dialogue on performance and media in telematic space.

Today dance and technology at ASU embraces many facets of contemporary culture. Students can learn the basics of video and audio recording and editing, web design, animation and multimedia design, then incorporate these elements into their creative studies, research and performances at ASU.