e-Dance project

(Written at Gate A9, Detroit airport on 9 October 2007.)

So, what has e-Social Science got to do with e-Dance (apart from sharing that ubiquitous ‘e’)? I gave a talk on Sunday morning in a workshop on visual methods (I don’t usually work on a Sunday, but after a 19 hour journey, I wasn’t too sure what day it was …). I presented a paper on Access Grid, Memetic, CREW and e-Dance. As usual when talking about this subject, there was a lot of interest in the potential of visual representations of recordings and some discussion of possible uses. The main focus of this was CREW rather than e-Dance, but it’s all part of the family!

In general, I enjoyed the parallel sessions in the conference a lot more than the keynotes, most of which seemed to concern themselves with posing broad and superficiously profound questions on how e-social science opens new opportunities for research without being able to posit exactly what these opportunities may actually be. An honourable exception to this was Carole Goble’s talk about the selfish nature of most researchers which works against collaboration and how it is therefore necessary to provide benefits for all when working with colleagues across disciplines. Whilst we were all half-cut when we heard this (it was an after-dinner keynote), it is nevertheless a good point to bear in mind as we explore how e-Science can support the choreographic process and we technologists get to grips with the particular needs of dance research.