Dancing into the digital: Embodied performance and digital multimodal composition
Molly E. Daniel · 2016
ABSTRACT This dissertation has two aims. The first is to further expand the scope of composition studies to include the/a/our body within digital multimodal composition—considering how it can be an active participant in both the process and the product. The second aim is to interrogate the ways in which the/a/our body interacts with technological components through literacy activities that are engaged within the composing process. Toward that end, it attends to the following overarching question: how does a composer creates an embodied digital performance? The problem space of this dissertation is multifaceted, building first upon bodies in composition and then exploring how they might potentially add to the importance of digital multimodal composition; these two areas of focus are not always examined in tandem, which makes their connection a space worth studying. Therefore, this dissertation addresses both challenging spaces by asking sub questions: 1) How does a composer incorporate his or her body as a site of or component of digital multimodal composition? 2) What literacy activities facilitate the movement between or the integration of material and digital bodies? This exploration adds to the existing scholarship within Rhetoric and Composition because it invites compositionists to consider, and explicitly acknowledge, the body as we continue to compose digitally, thereby revisiting the multimodal component of the body and pushing the boundaries between material and digital composing. In order to answer these questions, this dissertation describes the composing process through the lens of dance; identifies literacy activities in which the/a/our body participates; and theorizes the ways in which digital embodiment, and the mind-body connection reintegrate (explicitly) the/a/our body into the composing process. In order to understand the/a/our body’s potential in composition, this study focuses upon a singular case study that crosses disciplinary boundaries by examining digital dance, or dance and technology choreography. This study details the invention, revision, and performance of the dance Zero, One… performed in spring 2015. Studying this particular performance piece throughout the process highlighted the ways in which a composer (the choreographer in this instance) worked to simultaneously integrate movement phrases of the/a/our body and movement of digital projection as an immersive experience for both the dancers and the audience. In addition to the observation of rehearsals and the performances, interviews were conducted with both the choreographer and the dancers in order to understand the experiences of the composing body and the bodies that were a part of the final product, and choreography notes were collected. The data collected was analyzed in layers; first, it was organized into the major components of the composing process, then the interviews were inductively coded with two coding schemes, and the choreography notes and video observations were analyzed holistically. The analysis of the data…