‘The Same Space’ is an interactive dance film research project created by Peter Leung. With this project he explores choices of the performers and the audience. The creation process with the dancers of Dutch National Ballet took place during 20 hours of studio time. Peter saw it necessary to stay flexible, and knowing that the time in the studio would be limited, he wanted the process to be as open and kind as possible, removing the pressure of being perfect and exploring what a very personal investment in creation could be. None of the dancers were replaceable, and if someone was sick or had another rehearsal, they simply left a space where that dancer would have been.
“I am approaching this virtual residency as a work-in-progress, a continuation of my personal and collaborative research and work. My aim is to gain insights into the relation between performance and audience, performers and performative sculpture, and, as a choreographer, the relation with composers and dancers.”
From the beginning of the process he integrated the dancers voices by asking them questions and recording the responses. Composer Bertus Pelser took the recordings of their voices to create the soundscape for the work, and all sounds have been produced by the dancers. The set is a simple black box, devoid of an audience, with three metal cubes. This is the dancers’ space, and the boxes represent both limitations and safe havens. The dancers are observed by 3 fixed cameras. The online audience has the possibility to observe this performance via an interface designed by Daan Nolen (Sense Studio) that gives viewers the possibility to choose which of these camera perspectives they want to watch from at any time during the 19 minute performance. The idea of the audience being able to choose the camera perspective came about as Peter felt the need for an audience to be able to engage with an online dance performance in a way that brings them closer to a live experience.
‘The Same Space’ advances Peter’s ongoing collaborative work, such as his work around dance and performative sculpture (‘Resonance’ with Frouke ten Velden and Nicholas Thayer), dance in virtual spaces (Vj Academy), and his site-specific interdisciplinary work with Foundation House of Makers (most recently developing ideas for live streaming with Brigitte van Hagen and Fabienne Vegt for Het Grachtenfestival).
Credits:
Peter Leung concept / artistic direction / choreography
Sebia Plantefève dancer / collaborator
Clara Superfine dancer / collaborator / choreographic assistant
Costa Allen dancer / collaborator
Leo Hepler dancer / collaborator
Salome Leverashvili dancer / collaborator
Daan Nolen / Sense Studios video interface development
Hidde Kross / VJ Academy advice interface
Bertus Pelser music composition
Levien Priem colour grading
Alejandro Fernandez camera
Anu Viheriaranta production manager HNB
‘The Same Space’ is co-produced by Nederlandse Dansdagen & Dutch National Ballet
"Having made ‘Gently Quiet’, a series of short dance film portraits for online consumption, I wanted to take the opportunity to research what it means to make a dance film performance for today. How can I keep an audience invested and interested over a period of more than a few minutes? How does an audience experience a dance work online in a way that feels live? With this project I hope to find out more about these questions and how we, as a dance sector, can keep growing artistically in the digital realm that isn’t a substitute for the stage, but is considering the digital world as it’s own site-specific platform."
