The DAZZLE Project

DAZZLE: A Re-Assembly of Bodies is a dance for Virtual Reality, a multidimensional practice research project that gives audiences layered viewpoints into a performance event's virtual and physical space. The 45-minute output comprises six scenes created by an ensemble of eight dancers, a creative technologist, a sound artist, and two fashion designers.
Inspired by the 1919 ‘Dazzle Ball’ at the Royal Albert Hall, London, which celebrated the end of WWI, this project looks to the future of live and remote performance enabled by technology. The Dazzle Ball emerged from the aftermath of war and the influenza pandemic. A century later, DAZZLE reimagines this event with an artistic, forward-looking approach honouring the past.
The research incorporates innovations in motion capture, avatar embodiment, and interaction in shared virtual spaces. It creates three immersive experiences for the audience in VR: teleportation, an avatar on stage, and the audience in costume watching the performance. The choreography explores virtual performance production through digital dance duets. The costumes feature zero-waste pattern cutting and bold graphics. The choreography in cycling animations and wearable jewellery replaces everyday controllers to facilitate the free gesturing of hands and feet.

Research Aims:
Examine the tropes of the double in digital dance.
Integrate the artistic movements and cultural and historical references of the Dazzle Ball era (Intangible Cultural Heritage) into the choreography and design.
Test the limits of Extended Reality with current state-of-the-art technology.
Envision the potential of the research by developing and implementing streaming and machine learning tools into the research process.

Gibson's choreography extends her concept of 'Double presencing,' creating numerous examples of the digital dance duet. She considers "avataring" a verb, drawing on Gregory Ulmer's idea of multilateral experiences that weave into games, algorithmic and generative choreography, and online communities. She references her Amanuensis concept, reassembling bodies in mixed realities. She examines Ascott's 'double consciousness' and 'double gaze,' focusing on inhabiting two bodies and witnessing the self as the other 'beside itself' (Brian Rotman). The dance material and aesthetic design draw on Dazzle naval camouflage, Busby Berkeley, Vorticists, and Semaphore's signalling system.