Alèn Martel

Healthy Dancer Canada Conference 2024
'Community and Collaboration'
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
30 November - 1 December 2024

Abstract

This presentation explores how choreographer, performer(s), technology, and synchronous / asynchronous online users can work together in a collaborative creative process in order to create a contemporary dance work. The inspiration for this research comes from longstanding conversations with individuals (who are self-proclaimed “non-dancers”) who have been interested in contemporary dance creation, but have not been able to partake in such as a result of living in geographies and contexts where state religion, politics, and historical socio-religious biases in the participation of dance prohibits access to such. While physical access to dance within these geographies has noted limitations, the online world has long been noted by these individuals to be a window to a world of which they wish to be part, including in other artistic fields, such as the visual arts and music. In its original iteration in 2020/2021, the researcher explored how digital technology allowed one such individual from Peshawar, Pakistan who was not a dancer but who enjoyed music-making, visual art-making, and then desired to participate in dance-making to do so through a digital program (created in Processing), which involved a director (myself) and an interpreter (my original 2021 collaborator).
 

For this presentation, the researcher wishes to provide a short lecture informing the historical foundation of this research that started in 2020/2021, including the first iteration of asynchronous dance-making through digital technology with this individual from Peshawar, Pakistan. However, he then proposes to work with a selection of University of Calgary dance majors, asynchronous participants, and synchronous participants from the attending audience in order to create a dance work during the 45-minute presentation. While raw, it will be demonstrated that it is possible to work in alternative ways to create a contemporary dance work that can include not just participants in the live rehearsal room but those outside of it through the use of digital technology. The creative process will promote exploration rather than spectacle, and expert / non-expert participation rather than individual choreographic desires.
 

Software and Languages used: Processing, Kinectron, p5.js, Sonic Pi, ComputerVision, and TouchDesigner.

10th UCalgary Dance Research Conference
Faculty Panel
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
30 November 2023

This conference presentation demonstrated the process that the researcher went through in working collaboratively and asynchronously with an individual from Peshawar, Pakistan. The different iterations of digital tools were demonstrated, as well as a discussion on the challenges that apostates of Islam (murtads in Arabic) and those interested in the embodied arts (i.e., dance) face in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

co-presented with Rufi Oswaldo

Dance Studies Association Conference
'Contra: Dance & Conflict'
University of Malta, Valletta Campus
Valletta, Malta
5-8 July 2018

Abstract

"Pizza-burgers. Dodgeball rollerblading. The Mexican Korean eatery around the corner. The world is no stranger to fusion. Yet, fusion is not simply the coming together of two wholes to create one greater whole. In dance, it is a process fraught with artistic and cultural conflict. In this lecture-demonstration fusion, the authors share five years of data from experimentally fusing Ballroom dance with Contemporary dance from a North American perspective. This demonstration will embody conflict within what the authors term a ‘theory of coalescence’ in order to highlight different strategies of transforming conflict into creativity in myriad contexts."

co-presented with Waverly Spratt

Centre for Imaginative Ethnography (CIE) Symposium and Graduate Program in Theatre & Performance Studies Conference
'Imagining Differently: Research-Creation Processes in Urgent Times'
York University
Online
26-27 March 2021

Abstract

"This is a live research exploration into how choreographer, performer, technology, and online users can work together in a collaborative creative process in order to create a live dance work.The inspiration for this research comes from longstanding conversations with individuals who have been interested in dance, but have not been able to partake in the live viewing, creation, and/or performance of it. This inability is a result of living in geographies and contexts where socio-economic access to such is not viable or where state religion or politics prohibits access to such. As such, while physical access to dance within these geographies has noted limitations, the online world has been noted by these individuals to be a window to a world that they wish to be part of.  In pursuing this live research exploration, the researcher wishes to invite the online world, and especially those who live in geographies where physical access to dance is limited, to collaborate in the creative process of dance through the use of technology.

In this live research exploration, the coding software Processing, which is an open-source graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE), will be used by the choreographer/researcher in order to create a program where online users have the ability to input data into this online program based on particular constraints and instructions in order to generate particular outputs. These outputs will then be projected onto a screen and interpreted live by a performer in order to generate live choreography. Through this approach, the process of creation is collaborative, participatory, embodied, and improvisational in such a way that the process is jointly devised and owned by all involved. The goal of this research-creation process is to break down access barriers and to approach technology where it is an intermediary for collaboration."