[acc-cca-l] CFP - Dancing (with technology) issue of Intermediality / Intermédialités

[Aleksandra Kaminska]

[△EXTERNAL]


Call for Papers / Appel à publications for a special issue of Intermediality / Intermédialités


Dancing (with technology) / Danser (avec la technologie)


Guest Editors: Hilary Bergen (The New School) and Philippe Bédard (Independent Scholar)


Deadline for abstracts: June 7, 2025

Complete articles due: December 1, 2025

Publication Fall 2026


Full call in English<http://intermedialites.com/en/call-for-papers-no-48-dancing-with-technology-danser-avec-la-technologie/>

Aussi disponible en français <http://intermedialites.com/appel-a-contributions-no-48-danser-avec-la-technologie-dancing-with-technology/>


Isadora Duncan⎯fin de siècle pioneer of modern dance⎯believed that only the movement of the “naked” (unshod, unmediated) human body could be considered natural and therefore hold value. Duncan was fixated on stripping dance to its core instrument⎯the singular human form (Daly 1994). But dance has never been just about the body. On the contrary: dance is an assemblage. It gathers together technique, ceremony, choreography, habitus (Bourdieu 1990), and various media—lighting, costuming, music—all of which combine with bodies to produce performative effects. Furthermore, filmmakers, scientists, and animators have historically used dance to test and experiment with new media, including moving images, electric stage light, and animation techniques such as rotoscoping (Haslem 2019; Pierson 2020; Schonig 2021). This history frames dance as a networked, relational practice which extends the notion of “body” beyond the human as a discrete entity.


There is an ongoing relationship between dance and the development of today’s emerging digital technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), motion capture, and artificial intelligence (AI) (Birringer 2008; Berman & James 2015; Li 2021). Furthermore, dance is often instrumentalized for the purposes of advancing research in the fields of health and video games (Miller 2017), as well as in the military context (Yamamoto & Altun 2021) and in robotics (Skybetter 2024). Because dance is not just instrumental but also relational, responsive, and curious, the dancing body can serve as a valuable interface for exploring both the limits of new technologies and the effects of those technologies on the human experience.


It becomes clear that dance and technology are not oppositional terms. If “technology” represents a set of means (tools, methods, procedures) by which information is gained, then dance itself is a kind of technology insofar as it is a finely crafted skill that can be used to gather knowledge about the boundaries of the human body in its various mediated forms and the experience of more-than-human relation.


This issue of Intermediality aims to theorize dance (as genre, practice, and idea) from within historical and contemporary entanglements of bodies, media, affects, and values. We are seeking contributions from scholars, choreographers, technicians, and dancers in either essay format or a more creative form, with a focus on projects that involve dance and today’s new and emergent media, such as virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR), robotics, motion capture technology (mocap), AI applications, and other animative and choreographic interfaces. We especially welcome submissions that engage with disability, critical race, and gender studies, and research-creation approaches. Scholars wishing to focus on earlier historical examples of the intersection of dancing and technology are also encouraged to apply.


Some guiding questions for contributors might include:

-       Where does the organic human body exist (or persevere) in dance, especially in relation to “bodies” such as robots, avatars, digital renderings, and filmic or animated traces?

-       What is the emotional and philosophical experience of dancing with technology?

-       How do new capacities for virtuosity—now enhanced by digital technologies—impact both the possibilities of dance creation and the audience’s experience of watching dance?

-       How do histories of surveillance and biometric governance come to bear on, produce, or inform dancing bodies and choreographic practices today?

-       How does the rise of AI under advanced capitalism inform dance as a practice, institution, and cultural exchange? Conversely, can dance actively challenge the profit and productivity-based ideologies associated with AI?

-       How might collaborations between dancers, choreographers, and new media practitioners open up new channels for relationality, imaginative futures, and an expanded notion of what a dancing body is?



Proposals (350–400 words) in English or French should include an abstract, a preliminary bibliography (five books or articles), and a brief biographical note (academic program, fields of interest, 5–10 lines). Proposals will be evaluated based on the originality of the approach and thematic relevance. They should be sent to the guest editors (hilary.bergen at gmail.com<mailto:hilary.bergen at gmail.com> and bedphil at gmail.com<mailto:bedphil at gmail.com>) by June 7, 2025.


Intermediality/Intermédialités is a biannual journal that publishes original articles English and French evaluated through a blind peer review process. For more information, please consult the journal issues available through the online portal Érudit: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/im/



–
Aleksandra Kaminska, PhD
Professeure agrégée / Associate Professor
Département de communication
Université de Montréal
a.kaminska at umontreal.ca<mailto:a.kaminska at umontreal.ca>
artefactlab.ca<http://artefactlab.ca>

Directrice / Editor, Intermédialités<http://intermedialites.com/> / Intermediality<http://intermedialites.com/en/home/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.ucalgary.ca/pipermail/acc-cca-l/attachments/20250416/061a0230/attachment.html>