COLLABORATE : CREATE : COMMUNICATE

IJAD Dance Company is getting people dancing.

Through workshops, performances and our projects we’re getting people in every country in the world to dance at one time as a statement of personal empowerment. We use contemporary dance as the main tool of its social mission to unlock a person’s creativity and empower them. Dance gets people healthy. It gets people together and it gets people unleashing the tremendous energy inside themselves.

So, what does technology have to do with this?

Technology interprets. Technology communicates. Technology is intrinsically creative.
Technology creates bridges.

Think of your favourite place.
You have a camera – how would you photograph it?
Just by thinking about this you’re using your creative self.
By taking that photograph you are comparing reality with your interpretation of it.
By sharing it you are trying to communicate your perspective of the world to other people.

As soon as your idea leaves your head others can interpret it and collaborate with you to turn it into something new. That’s how performances are made. The director has an idea they relate to the dancers. They relate to the sound designer, to costume, to lighting, to set, to props. All those people see the vision, work together and create something else. Something beautiful.

With In-Finite we’re doing this using secrets. We’re doing it with social media. During one of our workshops, Turning Social Media into Creative Media, we asked participants to think about their secret, to feel where it sits, to interpret it and express it through Twitter:

“Tentative, sliding, haltingly curious. Releasing and losing the fire all at once. #SMDTworkshop”

Without knowledge of the actual secret, we then explored that sentence, physically. We then reinterpret it with technology. Images are from workshops. You can see more on our website.

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ONE
Humans are always finding new ways to express themselves and to try to pass to others what they see.

Drawing, painting, sculpting, mapping, photographing, filming, tweeting, blogging…. the list goes on.

Creativity can be built on top of Technology. IJAD is leading the way with its experiments in using it in the creative process. We are sharing it with everyone. We are inviting everyone to experiment with us.

TWO
We think nothing of an instant message to a friend halfway round the planet telling them how nice this cheese sandwich is. Lets do more than that. Let’s show people in every country how we’re expressing ourselves in the deepest ways. We don’t just want to talk to them. We don’t just want to send them an image. We don’t just want to show them a film. We want to show them what we are doing – right now. And we want them to talkback – right now.

Let’s take this phenomenal juggernaut of digital possibility and do something empowering. Let’s share our heritage, our countries and our culture. Let’s present our talented performers, our striking venues and our passionate audiences. And let’s see what can be shared back.

As artists we are responsible for getting the word out about they way we interpret what it is like to be human. So lets do that. With technology – with tools already integrated into our lives Powerfully. Globally.

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How are we doing this?

Sensography
Ever filmed a school play or your favourite band? Not quite the same as being there is it? We’re changing that. We’re experimenting with performers and developing methods for them to interact with the audience at the other end of the camera as well as the other end of the room.

This is exciting. This is new. We’re reaching out to touch an audience who isn’t in front of us. Our content comes from our audiences around the world in ways it couldn’t before, and we’re interpreting it using technology. Collaborating with dancers using technology and sending our work around the world, using technology.

In creating a production we use movement and story but that isn’t performance. The art of performance is how we communicate it in ways which have the most impact and the most meaning. We do this through connecting with vast numbers of people and affecting them deeply. This is the art of IJAD. This is the art of technology.

We’re building a pick-up-and-play tool-kit for venues and artists to share what they’re doing using technology – without the headache of too many platforms and not enough know-how.

We’re running workshops with students of dance to give them vital understanding of the digital world in dance practice.

We’re running workshops with the public to find out how they are using media in their everyday lives and how they express their ideas using technology and dance

We’re changing audiences.

Not only are we invigorating established dance enthusiasts, we’re drawing in a whole new generation – we’re speaking in ways already integrated into society. Think about the X Factor. Do you think people watching dim the lights and watch passively? No. They invite their mates over and gossip, they tweet to their friends, they share images of the show on facebook, they download the ringtones and they broadcast their views to the world.

We are not saying the format of current performance is bad, we’re saying, let’s create multiple ways of enjoying it for multiple people. Let’s allow people to gossip, tweet, share, follow and comment on a performance and share with each other other how it’s being done. Let’s give people permission to talk to us. To each other. Everywhere.

In this way we’re allowing people to interpret our content in the way they want to. We are also connecting them with other people experiencing it around the globe – what better way to share culture, ideas and understanding?

Technology belongs in the performance world.