The Dance of the Screen -- Fed Square

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Federation Square

Fed Square's Big Screen, which has become a Melbourne icon, this Friday night, will provide the link between Melbourne and Korea for a live dance game on Skype. 

 

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Scott McQuire, Associate Professor, School of Culture and Communication, Melbourne University said, "The HELLO DANCE PROJECT will utilise Skype technology on a grand scale, enabling the sharing, teaching, learning and interpreting of different movement gestures as they are exchanged live via large public screens situated in Seoul and Melbourne."

"This research and arts project is also about defining the role of technology and the use of big screen technology in public spaces such as Fed Square."

The big screen adds a new dimension allowing people from around the world to interact with complete strangers in Fed Square. This makes Fed Square a real time meeting place for people on an international front removing the physical barriers of personal communication across countries and cultures.

Dr McQuire said, "The use of the big screen technology at Fed Square, combined with Skype, provides a unique opportunity to break down the tyranny of distance and put people directly together from two countries and cultures."

"No words or instructions are exchanged between participants and the communication is based only on visual interpretation."

Dr McQuire said one person at a time in each location will enter a marquee and for two minutes will exchange visual movements with a complete stranger and then pass on what they have experienced to the next dancer to participate.

"Harnessing the newest technologies so that we can experience and perform one of the oldest arts together, across continents and cultures, HELLO is simple but also challenging, elegant, and fun."

"It is a new transnational dance, a 21st century folk dance for Australia and Korea!"

"HELLO is a continuously evolving dance routine: movements are passed back and forth in real-time between participants in Melbourne and Seoul over the course of one hour."

"Participants learn what you can and then teach whatever you can remember of the dance to the next participant - even though the participants are in different countries!"

"HELLO is an Australia-Korea live public dance and screen project conceived by Australian choreographer Rebecca Hilton in collaboration with choreographer Soonho Park and the Art Center Nabi, Seoul," Dr McQuire said.

HELLO is also part of Fed Square's annual screen program, which includes sporting broadcasts and film festivals along with interactive gaming, new creative works and commissions, SMS interaction and live crosses around the world.

7pm - 8pm Friday 7 October 2011
Fed Square, Melbourne and Art Art Theater Seoul
A free live public skype dance game. Everyone welcome.

http://spatialaesthetics.unimelb.edu.au/events

Media Enquiries:
Ron Smith, Corporate Media Communications, Fed Square - Mobile: 0417 329 201