Media Dance: An Art Form - The Intersection of Art, Technologies, and Bodies in Motion

Abstract

Media dance, as an umbrella term, building on its screendance roots, is a hybrid art form, one that operates at the intersection of dance (body in motion) and technology, with the frame of the screen in mind. In effect, media dance involves a conversation between the creator engaging with media dance, who must embrace all the possibilities of movement, dance, and technology, and the choreographer, who must grasp the possibilities of media as an art, while understanding the potential to create new kinds of works through the capture of movement and the power of editing. Building on and supported by a substantial review of the screendance literature, case study analysis, and interviews with leading Canadian and international screendance scholars, practitioners, and film festival curators, this research investigates the critical debates animating the screendance field today. The dissertation addresses one central research question in particular: is media dance, building on its screendance foundation, an art form with a viable future in a post-pandemic, technologically mediated world?