Friday, August 31, 2001

Santa Clara U. Dance Students Collaborate Online With a Troupe in Senegal By SCOTT CARLSON A student dance troupe at Santa Clara University is using the Internet to talk to dancers in Senegal and choreograph a performance with them -- and to present that performance online this weekend. The project is called Dancing on the Web, Dancing Over the Ocean. Kristin Kusanovich, a professor of dance at Santa Clara, says that her student troupe made contact with the Senegalese dancers through one of the first computer training centers in Western Africa, located in Dakar, Senegal's capital. The Santa Clara troupe has been working with six young female dancers in Dakar, sending e-mail messages and video clips back and forth and commenting on each other's work. The Senegalese girls, all 16-year-olds, have taught the Santa Clara dancers about traditional African dance and have also taught them a Senegalese song, to which the Santa Clara troupe will dance during the performance. In turn, says Ms. Kusanovich, the Senegalese girls have learned about American dance traditions. Each side has learned much about the other's culture. Ms. Kusanovich says that many of her students "had no idea what lifestyles were like for people who live in West Africa." "They had never had much occasion to study it, let alone meet and become friends with people who are living under extreme limitations compared with our lifestyle in this area." Of course, both sides have also learned a thing or two about technology. Ms. Kusanovich has shown her students how to record digital video of their dances, edit it, and load it onto the Web. The troupe has also used Quicktime VR to create 360-degree photos of particular moments in the dances. The Santa Clara students send these photos and videos to the Senegalese dancers, who send back comments or suggestions. "My goal is to help students be aware of what kind of technology is available to them and how it could supplement their work as a creative artist," Ms. Kusanovich says. "I'm very excited to see what people in this project might do with the skills they've gained." When the performance gets under way this weekend, the audience will see a modern-dance piece called "Cross Cultures," on which the two groups of students collaborated. Another work is based on "grooving," a form of street dancing popular in some American cities. The event will also feature a recorded performance by the Senegalese dancers, projected on a screen using digital video. The show will be Webcast on the Dancing on the Web site. Ms. Kusanovich says that the computer-training center in Dakar will hold a party and project the Webcast onto a screen. "For me, a big part of this project was connecting with traditional African roots, and then connecting those to my experiences as an African-American dancer," says Dana Robinson, a Santa Clara student who is majoring in dance and who aspires to be a choreographer. The project was an opportunity to round out her minor in ethnic studies. "Seeing the language difference was sheer excitement," she says. "This was my first opportunity to see African language in its written form, to hear it spoken, and to hear different songs. I was overwhelmed and overjoyed. For me it was a way to connect to my African roots." Dancing on the Web was started by a nonprofit organization called GroundZero, which supports the synthesis of art and technology and which has given about $74,000 to the project. Andy Cunningham, founder of GroundZero, says this is the first time her group has worked with a college project. "One of the main things that we try to do is create community," she says. "Silicon Valley, where we're located, is a very community-less place. It's really all about the technology and very little about the community and very little about the art. People kind of come here, make their billions, and leave. "So the idea of building community internationally, across cultures, was a very appealing idea to us," she says. "Bringing two cultures together through art -- allowing them to communicate using dance as a language and the Internet as a medium -- was a perfect thing." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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