suikoden
«vicki» - virtual improvisational choreographer / kinetic instructor (also known as «choreobot»)
vicki is a good example dance & performance technologies within modern/postmodern dance practice, rather than a new form. by replicating and automating existing choreographic approaches, viki implies that the old (performance) forms are good enough and are (perhaps) the only available forms.
vicki generates choreography though procedural methods. the output is variable but not unpredictable as it draws on a set of prescribed options. thus, rather than being improvised the choreographic structure is modified through chance procedures. chance procedures are not improvisation.
nor is vicki artificially intelligent. it is easy to make the mistake of reading creativity and intelligence into procedural and generative software. the intelligence and creativity is in the act of programming rather than the software runtime.
the choice of theme are variation as the core choreographic pedagogy is interesting. whilst any dance form practiced within our time is contemporary, «theme and variation» are classical choreographic approaches. if vicki made more preceptive choreographic structures it could take the exploration of theme and variation to its logical and computational conclusion. but viki is designed to stimulate improvised composition, not compose set works.
the choreography of a dance work is the defined structures (or way-points), the composition is how the dancer navigates, or joins up the way-points.
vicki makes a a choreographic structure in which the composition is improvised by the dancer. vicki does not shape the improvisation per se but defines the structure as it is created. there is no intelligence to this process, it is procedural. vicki can not see or respond to the dancers composition/improvisation. yes we can consider the choreography an improvisational structure, but the improvisation is dependent on the dancer.
given that vicki makes the same type of structure/score every time (i.e. verbal instructions) the dancer is learning to respond to a particular type of score rather than learning improvisation per se. vicki cannot coach the performer, the performer must rely on their existing improvisation skills and their own ability to develop/extend those skills.
what the performer develops is a set of applied techniques that facilitate real-time, procedurally generated choreography. whist these skills already exist within 20th century practice, the level of automation vicki provides is important. prior to vicki it was impossible to practice such a structure on your own.
we must also recognize the value of using technologies to augment and supplement existing praxes. vicki offers some alternative perspectives on how we can prepare for and revisit existing choreographic frameworks/performance.
i’m not sure that vicki makes understanding choreographic and performative processes more accessible. comprehension requires context(s) rather than a description of what is unfolding. however, vicki is an important addition to the «real-time software for choreography» canon. it is more opaque and present than than other examples, too often the tech in dance-tech facilitates re-readings of dance. in doing so the technology becomes transparent, the hidden magic. vicki asks us to reconsider the tech in light of, and as an instigator of the dance; a performative presence in itself
conceptual and semantic collisions aside, there is a wealth of research waiting to be uncovered in this work
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