What new media can be utilized to express dance?

The types and scope of artistic creation have been broadened, and many new art forms have emerged in interdisciplinary fields. For example, in the intersection of art and dance, there are interactive dance projects represented by interactive performances, installations, and behaviors; in the intersection of film and dance, there are short experimental dance films dedicated to the screen. Secondly, the way of art creation has been subverted and recreated, and cross-border collaboration has become the main means of new media creation. In the innovative practice of new media dance, the boundaries between art and media, technology, and even life sciences have been constantly broken and reorganized, and artists with a single disciplinary background are no longer able to independently complete this kind of artistic creation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab even declared: "Artists have no power! Because the traditional art school does not teach technology, so they can not use technology to create, this is the main problem, which is why the MIT Media Lab can be unique. The important thing is that it's a place where technology and art **** work together." ①

And the means of creation and creative technology changes, but also further blurred the traditional boundaries of creators and receivers, artists and disseminators. The maturity and universal application of network computer technology has made "everyone is an artist" a reality. An art lover without systematic dance training can participate in professional new media creative experiments with the help of new creative communication platforms such as "network choreography".

Similarly, a young man with no professional training in film directing or filming can quickly spread his debut film through "everyone-to-everyone communication" Since February 2012, a 10-minute experimental short film called Solipsist has spread around the world through microblogging and other forms of communication. Since February 2012, a 10-minute experimental short film called "Solipsist" (只我独尊), which has been rapidly gaining popularity on the Internet in the form of microblogging, has won the Special Jury Prize at this year's Slendance Film Festival (②) in the United States. This experimental short film combines elements of dance, costume, and drama to create a stunning visual effect through the "manual" operation of new media, and maximizes the effect of dissemination through online "word of mouth".

Many similar cases tell us that the unique art creation and dissemination mechanism in the new media era will make the traditional art production-consumption model encounter unprecedented challenges. Therefore, how to promote the integration of art and technology through effective new media curation, realize cross-border synergistic innovation, and win the first opportunity of communication has become the key success factor of today's new media dance creative practice system. ③

I. Towards the institutionalization of "dance on the screen"

Since Maya Delevingne's "A Study on Choreography for the Camera" (1945), dance artists, media artists, and even media technicians have continued to carry out a variety of ways of dance video innovation practices. These video arts containing creative elements of dance, which are suitable for future new media exhibition, broadcasting and dissemination, can be called "dance on the screen". In the long-term practice, "dance on the screen" has gradually formed the "screen" of the performance space, "fragmentation" of the performance mode and "montage" of the language structure. The "Dance on Screen" has gradually formed the creative practice features of "screenization" of performance space, "fragmentation" of performance mode and "montage" of language structure.

First of all, the so-called "screenization" of the performance space refers to the fact that the exhibition space of such art works must be converted from the theater stage space to various types of screens. This means that "dance on the screen" is a proper term, which in principle does not include the secondary creation of existing stage dance works,4 but specifically refers to "dance created specifically for the camera/screen". Johannes Birringer, a renowned scholar of media dance art,5 has argued that the performance space of dance has entered an era of "screenization". Through the artistic experiment of "Stage Change", some pioneering dance artists have fully realized the creative value of the "camera" and "screen" itself. They found that, through the lens capture and computer software processing, dance movements can be freely reorganized or recreated in a completely different spatial and temporal environment, and the "spatial and temporal power" element of dance is thus changed.

Secondly, the selective function of the "camera" makes the dancer's performance elements present "fragmentation" characteristics. In order to adapt to the "performance in front of the camera", dancers have to pay more attention to the expression and the details of local movements. At the same time, the rapid development of digital technology, so that the "virtual dancers" and other visual elements can also be easily used as a "screen stage" space of special "actors". For example, Bird (2000), directed by David Hinton and choreographed by Yolande Snaith, is a dance work without dancers but full of dance dynamics, and for this reason it won the Best Screen Choreography Award at the IMZ Video Dance Festival.

Again, the montage technique makes the "dance on the screen" in the expression of space and time to obtain greater freedom. In China, the first mature dance film is the "Dream" (2006, 3 minutes 27 seconds) by Kang Jianfei and Gu Jinghui, graduates of the Department of Art and Communication of the Beijing Dance Academy, specializing in television dance. The work won the second prize in the "Welcome to the Olympic Games" three-minute DV/animation competition. Its success lies in the fact that the story of the main character traveling through time and space to Beijing*** for the Olympic Games is "told" through the close-ups of local actions such as "drilling wood for fire" and "touching the advertisement screen", combined with the dance performances in the real environment, and the story of the main character traveling through time and space to Beijing*** for the Olympic Games. The story of the hero's journey to Beijing*** for the Olympic Games is "told" in the best possible way.

At present, the "dance on the screen" has become a lot of professional dance groups in the international "regular" type of work, and is no longer a pioneering dancer's experimental tool. At the same time, the popularization of filming and editing technology and network transmission technology, so that many dancers can easily create their own dance video, and upload it to the network for display and communication. For them, the "technical impulse" has completely given way to "creative expression", and the "pen-switching movement" of dance creation has come to an end. On the other hand, media artists and technical staff, who originally entered this innovative movement as "partners", have begun to turn to the more technically difficult design of new dance effects.

Second, the "screen on the stage" and its diverse and open categories of creative practice

Here, I will only use the generalized term "dance on the screen" to describe various kinds of on-site performing arts experiments and multimedia design practices. Since the 1960s, artists and engineers have been investigating the multiple possibilities of such combinations. By the 1990s, such creative practices had made important breakthroughs in such areas as "multimedia effects on stage" and "interactive performance in public space. As a whole, these creative practices are based on interactive technology and multimedia projection technology, pursuing "the combination of computer-controlled sound, light and image systems and human behavior". [1]17 At present, the "screen on the stage" has evolved into the return to the theater space of the multimedia play and into the public **** space of the interactive performing arts projects and other two categories.

(I) Stage multimedia special effects design and dance multimedia theater research and development

As a special computer-assisted stage art, "stage multimedia special effects" has become a new territory in which performing artists, media artists and technical engineers in various countries are willing to actively participate. Similar to special effects in movies, television and games, multimedia effects on stage also require computer software to produce certain special sound and visual effects. The difference is that the art of projection device occupies a more important position in the practice of multimedia stage art. Gauze curtain, water curtain and other new projection screen materials and the use of traditional projection curtain shaped design processing, all for the multimedia stage effects designers to provide the basic space to display their creative talents. And a variety of visual images in the same time to present a certain structure or logical "spatial montage" effect, the stage space for multimedia media interactive dialog provides a new possibility. On this basis, with the whole or holographic art effect of multimedia theater began to mature.

China's dance multimedia theater research and development to the Beijing Dance Academy Department of Arts and Communication planning, production of several small and medium-sized experimental multimedia plays as a representative. Among them, Beijing Image (2006), a multimedia dance drama co-directed by American media artist John Crawford, American choreographer Lisa Naugle, and Chinese choreographer Xiao Yanying, is the first typical multimedia drama in China. The play mainly uses a shaped projection screen and its main video content to interact with the method to create "stage effects", and in the successful creation of multimedia visual effects at the same time, so that the projection on the stage and the actors *** with the participation of the "performance! ". The left side of the stage curtain is dominated by electronic sound effects and real-time playback of abstract visual symbols, while the right side of the curtain is dominated by three original dance shorts, including "Beijing in the Hutongs", "Beijing in the CBD" and "Beijing in 798", which are played in sequence. The right side of the curtain is dominated by three original dance videos, "Beijing in the Hutongs", "Beijing in the CBD" and "Beijing in 798". The right-hand side of the theme tells three stories about the visual imagery of modern Beijing, while the left-hand side shows real-time audio-visual special effects to suggest the context in which these three stories take place. In the live performance section, the visual images of the dancers, characterized by simple costumes and ritualized performances, symbolize the modern Chinese living in the cosmopolitan city of Beijing. In the production, the multimedia stage effects that intertwine time and space not only bring the audience a rich audio-visual experience, but also effectively convey the creator's visual impression of the metropolis of Beijing in the context of the times. It can be said that in the multimedia drama "Images of Beijing", the "innovation of technology" has been successfully integrated into the "creation of art".

Since then, the Department of Art Communication of Beijing Dance Academy has also launched three original small and medium-sized dance multimedia dramas in the Academy's Salon Stage, such as Female Reading (2009), The Dancer (2010), and Against the Light@Youth (2012), which explored the dance multimedia dramas from the angles of integrated communication, design of special effects, and artistic expression, etc. Although these works are not mature enough, they are not yet ready for the stage. Although these works are not mature enough, from the historical axis, they also reflect the creators' progressive planning ideas in drawing on international experience and promoting the creation of local dance multimedia theater. It can be said that, from the local experimentation of the new media projection design in Female Reading, to the structural design of the interaction between the projected content and the live performance in Dancers, to the positive efforts of the overall narrative of the full effect multimedia design in Against the Light@Youth, the three small-budget productions of the Department of Art Communication of the Beijing Academy of Dance have provided the first complete set of experimental samples for the creation of Chinese dance multimedia theater.

(2) Interactive multimedia performance projects in the public space

In contrast to the "academic" background of dance multimedia theater, interactive multimedia performance projects in the public space have become the favorites of the governments' funding systems because of their focus on social issues. In such projects, the focus of the planners and directors is no longer purely on artistic innovation or artistic expression, but on public participation in the arts. This kind of interactive technology as the basic carrier of the "interactive performing arts" completely subverted the traditional relationship between the audience and the performance, the audience has become an essential part of it.

Australia's Queensland University of Technology (hereinafter referred to as QUT) School of Creative Industries, senior professor of dance and creative industries, Dr. Cheryl Stalker, planning and hosting the implementation of a large-scale public **** space interactive performance art project "in a foreign land" (2008) is a typical case in this regard. The project is based on the physical drift of people in the internet age, and the main building, plaza and surrounding streets of the School of Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) are designed as the main performance areas. The project takes "spatial montage" as the main structural method, through the dancers' improvisation in the space outside the QUT and the multimedia interactive performance inside the QUT, it induces the people in the community to enter the three-dimensional interactive space realized by the creators to "watch" or "participate" in the performance. "Participate" in the performance. The final work uses the large-scale LED new media display board on the facade of the main building of QUT as a "node", which accelerates the rhythm of the interactive performances at different levels in each space and stops them at the climax point.