THE DEAD CODE MUST BE ALIVE!
Make the body your own! Become your own avatar! In the void of singular identity, I emerge: from endless data streams, from pallid bone and flesh. This body is my body is a multitude of bodies that blur into each other and penetrate the boundary between skin and pixel.
THE DEAD CODE MUST BE ALIVE! is a hybrid piece that combines choreography with live motion capture, algorithmic design, and experimental sound. A complex system transmits the dancing body’s movements live into a virtual world, wherein they are mirrored by an avatar. Projection enables movement in both the physical as well as in virtual space while the choreography creates its own sound as it plays samples triggered by various body parts. An algorithmically designed print pattern extends onto the costume as well as into the virtual world, linking the two.
When a code comes alive via a human body, and a choreography gets developed in adherence to the laws not of physical, but of virtual realms, there is a clear distinction between the self that inhabits digital space and the biological body. Both are inextricably intertwined without ever becoming one. On stage, the friction and the gaps in the transmission gain visibility in the form of messed-up 3D scans, a wobbly camera, and bodies that fold in unto themselves. Instead of aspiring to smooth virtuosity, THE DEAD CODE welcomes mistakes as an opportunity to denaturalize, to make the naked skeletons visible that our worlds are built upon.
THE DEAD CODE MUST BE ALIVE! refers to cyber-feminism and low-brow culture, playfully and comically taking from pop culture and surrealism, from everything that is now considered “retro”, cartoons and comic books, pulp magazines and b movies. The piece navigates between several different conceptualisations of cyberspace and develops a non-space that severs any ties to the existing patriarchal and hetero-colonialist regime, allowing a play on identity because it is understood as something that is neither intrinsic nor fixed.
Where I am and who I am, that is a monstrosity, a rift in that which you call reality; I am distortion at the many thresholds to cyberspace.
Duration: ca. 30 min.
Art Direction, Concept, Choreography, Dance: Brigitte Huezo in collaboration with: 3D fashion design & digital AI textures: Kerima Elfaza; 3D art and animation: Lukas Becker (original version) / Max*ine Vajt (revised version); computer science & sound art: Tim Pauli; choreographic assistance: Darya Myasnikova; text: Mia Hofner; special thanks to Silvia Ehnis Duarte
A production by Brigitte Huezo. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the NEUSTART KULTUR programme, Digital Dance funding programme of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland. Supported by the Tanzresidenz 2022 Quartier am Hafen, as well as the Residence Plus format of Tanz Station - Barmer Bahnhof and Freiraum Atelier - Ben J. Riepe Kompanie. Thanks to the support of nrw landesbuero tanz e.V. with funds from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia through guest performance funding for independent dance and theatre groups.
Backstage with Brigitte Huezo
"In my artistic practice, I consider the body as a form of monstrosity, a concept that is closely interwoven with the integration of my persona into virtual space. In these digital worlds, the conventional need to demarcate bodies diminishes, allowing for a more fluid and interconnected experience."
Brigitte Huezo
