Amber Steele

High Technology Dance: the Image Continuum - Dance is Meaning and Message Amber Steele

Faced with the seemingly overwhelming possibilities of high technology, choreographers must embrace these tools and master them in order to assure that their choreographic intent is not lost in translation. Allowing the fear of new technology to create a taboo will not protect the art of dance performance, it will condemn it to becoming an obscure pastime. Dance has often been qualified as a fleeting choreographic image, and traditionalists fear that by capturing or re-imaging dance, technology destroys the original work. In fact, the re-creation of an image is an integral part of human perception. Technology modifies an image in translation, but does not inevitably destroy the original image or its message. By embracing technology, choreographers can ensure that technology archives and enhances their work in keeping with their choreographic intention. The craft of performance and dance will continue to harness the ever-improving digital horizons, and the technology will demand that viewers expand their scope of artistic categorization and abilities to perceive in differing and multiple simultaneous formats.