DigIT
Dance Image and Information Technology
Mercurial Dance explores the power of dance to communicate and inspire, creating performance and participatory projects in a variety of different settings, contexts and media. They focus on dance projects that excite and involve young people and integrate 21st century technological and artistic interests.
DigIT is an action research project, exploring a creative and unique way of displaying the process of physical learning using the medium of dance, image and technology.
The children were inspired by the immediacy of creating special effects in real time. They developed in confidence from performing and leading their peers and benefited from a more exploratory approach to learning.
A steering group of eight children were taught to use Isadora Software, developed ideas, learnt dance moves and decided on the content of the project. They chose a theme of a quest through a labyrinth, loosely based on the Minator story. Acting as peer leaders, the steering group assisted in teaching. Leading their group during a series of day workshops to create great dance films around the theme of the scary things you find in the maze.
We then created an exhibition and maze like structure, transforming the school hall. We projected their films and included the live Isadora elements they made on these surfaces. Ghostly figures of the children wondering round the maze. The environment we created with the children was something that they had never seen before.
Through the project the children's attitudes to dance and technology were positively changed. Their confidence, concentration and skills increased and this influenced their progress in the classroom and other work.
"I enjoyed this project because it was exciting and fun"
"Before the dance project I thought I wasn't good at dancing but now I am."
"Mercurial dance is for anyone no matter who you are or what you look like"