Taipei, July 17 (CNA) Cloud Gate Dance Theatre Artistic Director Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍) has been working with Japanese new media artist Daito Manabe to explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the dance troupe's new work "Waves," the Taiwanese choreographer said.
"The first idea about the work came at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. I felt that someone's sneeze far away could affect how we live our life. Conflicts somewhere in the world could lead to food shortages in Africa," Cheng said at a press conference at the National Theater in Taipei on Monday.
Cheng said these ideas made him wonder how the waves of energy created by a dancer's performance on stage reach and resonate with the audience in an invisible process, the power of which he seeks to showcase in the new piece.
When contemplating how to create the new piece, Japanese new media artist Daito Manabe -- whom he has followed on Instagram since 2016 -- came to mind, because of his augmented-reality design for Japan's closing ceremony presentation at the Rio Olympics in 2016, Cheng said.
Cheng and Manabe met in Tokyo in early 2022, and Manabe's works to record data from dancers, such as their breathing, voices and the electric pulses in their muscles, began in February, the dance troupe said in a statement released Monday.
Meanwhile, Manabe said at the press conference that he is excited about working on the project with Cloud Gate because "my past choreography works involved fewer than 10 dancers. It is like nothing I have worked on before because Cloud Gate has a lot more dancers."
Although Cloud Gate dancers said some of the moves generated by AI are physically impossible, Manabe said it is still early days in the adoption of AI in choreography, and the process provides an opportunity to peek into the future through trial and error.
"After all, what we have are programs and data. Our challenges are to make what is invisible visible," said Cheng, noting that AI could spark new body movements for Cloud Gate dancers, who have been trained in martial arts and Tai Chi.
In addition to the music and background videos, AI will be used to create a small part of "Waves," Cheng said.
"Waves," which is Cheng's work to mark Cloud Gate's 50th anniversary, will be staged at the National Theater in Taipei from Oct. 12-15, National Taichung Theater from Oct. 28-29, and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts from Nov. 4-5.
The dance troupe began its 50th anniversary celebration with a six-city tour performing founder Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) 1978 piece "Legacy."
The group presented the first of two free open-air performances of Cheng's "13 Tongues" in Taipei over the weekend, to be followed by a second show in Taichung on Saturday, and a series of workshops around Taiwan.
After wrapping up the three-city tour of "Waves," Cloud Gate will embark on a five-week European tour with "13 Tongues" in France and Spain, and Cheng's 2019 piece "Lunar Halo" at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre by the end of the year, according to its website.
