josephine g.

dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

Instant Online Collaboration: Just Add Dance Vision

While there are many virtual world programs, there is no other program or methodology which leverages theater and dance specifically towards virtual cultural exchange and identity exploration, nor is there any other existing initiative that leverages a shared virtual space to realize a body of cross-cultural interplay frameworks based on the common language of dance, games, and theater. Given the state of migration worldwide and the growing globalization and cultural exchange made possible by pervasive technologies such as the Web, this project has the potential for far-reaching impact not only for the field of dance and dance scholarship, but for international youth development, cultural integration, education and other arts initiatives as well.
Background

Cultural exchange is at the heart of international conflict resolution, yet the experience of cultural exchange through traveling is not accessible for many youth. When I was awarded a Fulbright grant in 2003, the experience was transformative, both personally and professionally, and the value of learning about another culture was something that I wished to pass on to others. In 2005, the seed of an idea developed. Based on my previous background in dance and performing arts, technology and the hybrid platform of networked performance (theater in a virtual space which enables performers in geographically dispersed locations to perform together), I initiated the Kidz Connect project, which is a virtual cultural exchange program that connects youth in different countries through creative collaboration and performance in virtual worlds.
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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

The backbone of Kidz Connect is based on dance, digital storytelling and improvisational performance as frameworks for online collaboration and cross-cultural exchange. Through these frameworks, which encourage active listening and interaction, we can build richer online rapport, allowing participants to instantly connect and cooperate regardless of geographical location or previous experience with performance or digital media. In 2006, the Kidz Connect pilot project was launched between students in New York City and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Through collaborations with Imagine IC, Polytechnic University and Waag Society, students in New York connected and created with students in Amsterdam through movement, improvisational performance and digital storytelling in Teen Second Life. Guided by artists and educators from theatre and digital arts, students learned skills like Playback Theatre (improvisational storytelling technique), dance improvisation, digital storytelling, and 3D modeling. In Teen Second Life, they met and collaborated to build a hybrid virtual city combining aspects of both New York and Amsterdam. Within that common space, they created a performance that simultaneously occurred live and online. The project continued with a program in 2008 involving students at the Patel Conservatory in Tampa, Florida and students at the IVKO Montessori School in Amsterdam. The students wrote, created and performed a live show in Teen Second Life, learning about each others culture in the process through music, dance, digital art and/or storytelling within this virtual world. The program has since then taken other manifestations, each tailored to meet the needs of the youth community and engage the students in a creative way. In 2009, we realized a project with teens from the Macondo refugee community on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria, via a collaboration with Cabula 6 and Tanzquartier Wien. The project, called Macondo Dance
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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

Connect, was a mixed reality performance project that involved bringing kids together from the Macondo refugee community using dance, mapping, storytelling and Teen Second Life (see Image 1 below).
Image 1. Macondo Dance Connect: youth from the Macondo refugee community create dances based on their heritages and map them to their avatars, exploring different cultural identities. The video screens in the background display the students dancing in real life. The mixed reality experience of virtual+physical bridges the gap between physical, digital and its mixed possibilities.

The Macondo Dance Connect project required reaching out to the Macondo refugee community on the outskirts of Vienna, where the students originated from a myriad of cultures including Chechnya, Cameroon, Syria, Pakistan, Chile and Iran. The objective of the Macondo Dance Connect project was to re-connect youth from the refugee community to their native cultures by allowing them to creatively discover their own history, current livingPage 3 of 8

josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

circumstances and neighborhood, while allowing them to explore the nature of cultural identity through creative interplay in virtual space. Students created dances based on their heritages and mapped them to their avatars, exploring different cultural identities in the process. A continuing Kidz Connect series of programs has grown through the seeds planted during my initial Fulbright experience, and this experience continues to be an inspiration as I continue to develop frameworks for cross-disciplinary cultural exchanges through theatrical and dance structures in mixed reality space. The affordances of games and virtual world spaces such as avatars digital representations of ourselves and a shared virtual environment have been incorporated. Avatar role-playing games are utilized so that students can create alternate virtual versions of themselves, perhaps alternate realities where they are superheroes or villains or some other character by which they extend themselves and discover different facets (or facades) of identity and cultural constructs. The students become active authors in the fabrication of their own identities: They play the game of constructing who they are. Role-playing and other theater and dance-based activities become the platform by which students can work together. Following structured parameters gives the group a goal yet frees them up to be creative as well. (see Image 2 on the next page).

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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

Image 2. A student's alternate avatar

Activities involving game-like activities that are rule or task-based, when paired with storytelling and movement, translate to a shared mixed reality space optimally. Mixed reality refers to the merging of the real with the virtual space, in which the boundaries between reality and surreality, between fiction and nonfiction, are blurred. Using a combination of live performance and video projection within virtual worlds, the layers between material (physical) and immaterial (virtual) identity are fused and confused. Through the use of avatars, movement and role-playing, we can explore our differences and sameness, enabling us to expand our notions of evolving identity, making it dynamic and creative. The virtual space, at times, acts as both a reflection of reality as well as an absurd interpretation of it, stretching the horizon of our perceptions while revealing the subtext underneath. Pitting the physical realities of actual bodies in real space and real time, against the fantastic surrealities of a concurrent virtual existence, we can also juxtapose human with nonhuman or

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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

superhuman movement. We can see our physical surroundings set against a virtual neighborhood of our own making questioning what creates the culture that we live in, and ultimately, questioning what makes us human. By mixing realities in which the physical and virtual are present simultaneously and incorporating cultural issues and theatrical form, we collectively engage participants in the current culture and identity debates enveloping a rapidly changing world. My research continues along this path, focusing on creative collaboration and cultural exchange in mixed reality space through interactive, game-based approaches to dance and theater. Play is at the heart of each activity. There are games, dances and folk theater at the heart of every culture, and this becomes the common language. Creativity is supported and participants are encouraged to contribute their ideas as co-authors of their own learning and identity. Recently, I developed and hosted an #IdentityMashup lab at CultureHub in New York City in conjunction with Seoul Institute for the Arts. The #IdentityMashup lab was a mixed reality presentation, in which participants created (dis)embodied stories based on Jungs shadow archetype, and explored identity through a mashup of avatar roleplaying, livestreaming and movement performance. Short stories based on shadow work were told through an avatar whose face was mapped to a live video stream of the participants actual faces, creating hybrid physical-online identities that were simultaneously distorted and revealing. Participants in NYC shared improvisational dance movements with participants in Seoul based on stories both groups had submitted and brought to life (see Image 3 on the next page).

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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

Image 3. #IdentityMashup lab: participants in NYC and Seoul share improvisational dance movements while storytellers faces are mapped to shadow avatars, creating hybrid physical-online identities that were simultaneously distorted and revealing.

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josephine g. dorado
! josephine@funksoup.com ! +1.646.228.9100 ! http://funksoup.com

It was stunning to see the creativity and camaraderie explored across cultures and countries, where groups of strangers transformed themselves into a hunting hawk, an operating room complete with vital signs monitor, and an all inclusive organic machine riffing on words derived from the writing exercise. Many countries are experiencing an influx of immigrants, and it is a unique and apropos time for this kind of program. Increasing immigration corresponds to increasing issues of displacement, possible conflict and integration. Cross-cultural interplay is not a luxury it is a necessity, and creating the frameworks for this is an essential step. When we creatively explore our personal histories and current circumstances, we question the nature of reality, cultural identity and home. Mixing realities and integrating movement exploration challenges pre-conceived notions of cultural identity, opening the door to fantastic tales as well as a grounding sense of empowerment as we journey through virtual and real interpretations of migration and integration, inspired by our past as well as future identities.

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