Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge

As an academic with the dual identity of digital choreographer and scholar, like many artists my practice interrogates ideas and concepts as much as any of the papers I write. This paper is written from the perspective of an artist-scholar, with the emphasis on the artist side of the equation. It explores through examples the possibilities that digital media can offer to developments that are starting to take place amongst artists in South East Asia whose practice is rooted in traditional dance forms. Although a new artistic medium it is argued that digital choreography can provide a means of thinking beneath the traditional forms of expression to the implications that they might harbour within 21 century society, and the implications that 21 century thinking might hold for approaches to traditional dance forms. Intended as an introduction to the use of this new medium in dance, it traces the development of the use of digital media in the choreographic domain, and introduces some of the thinking that lies beneath the works that digital choreographer and artists are creating in this new artistic field. Digital dance is one of the most contemporary of art forms in the 21st Century. Although contemporary composers had been using computer technologies in their work since the mid20 century, choreographers and theatre directors were slower to embrace the use of the computer as a means of generating alternative choreographic forms. It was probably Merce Cunningham who initiated in the public mind an awareness of the possibilities digital technologies offered the choreographer (although less well-known choreographers were also exploring the use of digital media in dance in the 1990s as will be seen). One of the first to experiment with the use of video as an independent choreographic medium, having collaborated with Charles Atlas on the production of what were probably the first videodance works Locale (1979) and Channels/Inserts (1982) and on an adaptation of his stage work Walkaround Time (1968, filmed 1973), in the 1990s Cunningham began to explore the possibilities offered to choreography by computer technology. Recognising that, just as Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 2 video had generated a new platform for choreographic endeavours in the 1980s, the radical increase in the capabilities of computer technology offered even more new directions for choreography. Cunningham participated actively in the development of Lifeforms, one of the first animation programmes designed specifically to generate the complex movements that form the foundation of twentieth century theatre dance. Lifeforms provided choreographers, including Cunningham, with an alternative means of generating dance movement. This was of value for a number of reasons, including a diminishing ability to demonstrate complex dance movements accurately as choreographers age. However, Cunningham recognised that computer programmers offered the choreographer far more than this, it offered a new way of thinking dance, and a way of extending the concept of choreography. He began to collaborate with digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar of Riverbed on early computer-based installation works that drew on his choreography for their movement materials. One of the first was called Hand Drawn Spaces (1998), the stage work Biped (1999) followed by Loops (200108).) This became one of the first major choreographies to directly integrate into a live dance work computer generated digitised images (avatars) of its dancers and abstract kinetic graphics. The former were created using a computer based technique called motion capture which, using multiple cameras encircling the dancers captured in three dimensions the movement of Cunningham’s dancers. The data was processed by Riverbed using computer software to create abstractions of the original dancers in motion. It was then projected both on the cyclorama and on a scrim at the front of the stage to generate a sense of the avatars inhabiting the same space as the live performers. It was through work such as this that a gradual adoption of digital choreography as part of the culture of contemporary dance began to take place. 1 Now known as Danceforms, this programme allows a choreographer to generate entire dances on and for the computer screen. Of more importance, easy to use and intuitive for the dancer it also facilitates experimentation with new ways of moving as live dancers and facilitates experimentations with the structure of sections of choreographic works without tiring the dancers who ultimately will be dancing the work live. (Information available on http://www.charactermotion.com/products/lifeforms/index.html 2 Although Cunningham (who was 90 when he died in 2011) has used the programme consistently since the 1990s to make the movement material for dance works (e.g. CRWDSPCR, 1996) it is of interest that the programme has not yet been taken up for this purpose by many others choreographers. 3 Details of these work are available on http://openendedgroup.com/artworks.html. 4 Details of this work can be accessed on http://openendedgroup.com/artworks/biped.html 5 For technical details of the technical principles underlying of motion capture systems go to the paper Motion Capture by Maureen Furniss (MIT Labs USA) access on http://web.mit.edu/comm-­‐forum/papers/furniss.html Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 3 The newly developed genre of digital performance is multifaceted. As Steve Dixon’s book Digital Performance (2007) makes evident it spans: • performances in which digital imagery is used as part of the scenography of a live performance work or as ‘virtual’ performers with whom the live performers can engage on the stage, for example, Biped, Troika Ranches 16 [R]evolutions and my own work with choreographer Liz Lea, Eros~Eris; • interactive performances in which the texture of a performance environment is activated by the interplay between live performers and new media technologies from moment to moment. Examples include: Apparitions (Kurt Obermaier and Desirée Kongerød, 2000, Nearly Ninety (2010), Merce Cunnningham’s final work; Carol Brown and digital architect Mette RamsgardThomsen’s The Changing Room (2004) and SeaUnSea (2006); • telematic performances, where the performers might be performing in several different venues or even cities simultaneously, a duet across time and space, for example, Company in Space's Escape Velocity (2000); • interactive installation performances, where the performance takes place in a large-scale installation environment with the audience either surrounding the environment or even occupying the performance space with the performers. Examples include Susan Kozel and Kirk Woolford’s Contours (1999-2000), Igloo’s Winterspace (2001), Sarah Rubidge and Hellen Sky’s global drifts (2006). • interactive installations that are designed to be exhibited without formal performances taking place within them, for example, Gretchen Schiller and Susan Kozel’s trajets (versions 1 & 2: 1999-2007), Sarah Rubidge and Alistair MacDonald’s Sensuous Geographies (2003). Rightly or wrongly, interactive performances and installations have implicitly been taken as the zenith of digital performance. In interactive works the stage/installation environment is electronically sensitised by an interactive system that is activated by those entering the space. This allows performers or visitors to installations to process sound or visual imagery in ‘realtime’ so as to generate and/or modulate the performance/installation’s digital environment to which they are responding. For this reason interactive installations are sometimes known as performative installations as they are designed to be simultaneously activated and viewed by visitors, who by virtue of this become both informal 'performers' in and creators of the choreographic world they are experiencing. Although often created by choreographers, such works might also be generated by digital artists, for example, Simon Biggs, Halo (1998) and Kirk Woolford’s Will.0.w1sp (2005). The establishment of this new genre of dance has not been a straightforward ride, however. 6 Professor Steve Dixon is currently President of Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 4 Having been closely involved in the development of ‘digital dance’ in the UK since 1994 I have been party to the process of coming to know this new medium and understanding not only its advantages but also its limitations. Looking back over the years, in comparison with the sophistication of digital performances today, early experiments with performance and digital media, even those created by Cunningham, were by today’s standards fairly crude. Personal, even professional computers were slower, had comparatively little storage and memory, and certainly found realtime image processing difficult to effect without loss of quality. As a result much of our energy was spent in developing systems and programmes within the available technology that would address the artistic ideas we were forwarding. As these needed testing in and through performance and other artistic works many of the early works remained at the level of experiments in the generation of artistic ideas that integrated performance and new media. Amongst the first to do this in the choreographic domain was Mark Coniglio, codirector with Dawn Stoppiello of New York based Troika Ranch, one of the first dance companies dedicated to creating dance works using digital media. These two artists have been making stage choreographies using digital media since at least 1989. In order to realise Troika Ranch’s ambitious artistic ideas, in the early 1990s Coniglio developed a piece of software with interactive capabilities specifically for the company. He called it Isadora (after early twentieth century modern dancer Isadora Duncan). He made the software available to choreographers soon after its development for a minimal cost, assuming correctly that the artistic needs of artists other than those involved in Troika Ranch would advance the development of the software more rapidly. Although of particular importance to dance artists who work with digital media, and originally used primarily for this purpose, Isadora has since developed into a highly sophisticated multipurpose software for the arts. It is used extensively by dance artists, installations artists from both dance and other arts disciplines, visual artists, composers and VJs. Even major filmmakers such as Francis Coppola (Twixt) are now 7 A series of collaborative workshops for choreographers and digital artists was held in the UK between 1994 and 1998. This gave rise to the first generation of UK digital dance artists, including Ruth Gibson of Igloo, Susan Kozel, Gretchen Schiller and myself. 8 This is a fear that has bedevilled the development of new forms of expression that use technology since the beginning of the twentieth century when first film, then television, then video were introduced into the world of entertainment and the arts. As yet this is a fear that has not yet been realised, as film did not replace theatre, nor video film. Similarly developments in new media have not yet replaced live dance performance and direct engagement with performance, and I suspect never will. As in the past, the new forms are running parallel to the old, complementing extant practices in the domain of performance with the new expressive potentials they offer. Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 5 becoming interested in the interactive potential of the software that we have been using for almost two decades. The software continues to develop as new artistic ideas are brought to bear on it, with practitioners sharing their discoveries and new internal systems they have developed for the software. Troika Ranch’s more recent, and thus more technologically mature works include Loopdriver (2009) and 16 [R]evolutions (2006), both of which make sophisticated use of digital technology. In 16 [R]evolutions, for example the dancers generated the calligraphic imagery in realtime as they danced. At present (second decade of the 21st century) the availability of sophisticated software and affordability of powerful computers, alongside their ability to respond rapidly to data generated by users as it is received, has opened up an extraordinary range of new artistic possibilities for the dance artist. For those interested in integrating digital media into their choreographic works artistic ideas can now take a dominant role as the technological articulation of the artistic ideas will be as sophisticated as the ideas themselves rather than led by the constraints of the technology. For example, choreographers can now process video imagery in realtime to create intricate digital effects and equally intricate avatars of the dancers. Performers can generate their own (digital) double on a stage or in an installation in ‘realtime’ with no lag or jerkiness. The results are projected onto a stage or installation environment either immediately (to reveal the digital image of a dancer performing the same movement as the live performer) or, if desired, a few seconds later, as if dancing with a memory of the recent past. As well as being available for projection as a regular video image, it can also be modulated using realtime video processing systems that start processing in response to a performer’s actions. This enables the performer (or visitor to an installation) to hold a danced conversation with themselves or to dance in unison or in canon with their digital double, as if the latter were a recent memory. In some performances the software is programmed so that they can make their digital double change size, direction, tempo and texture using signals received by the software from movements the performers/visitors themselves are making. For example, moving faster 9 See http://troikatronix.com/coppola/ 10 This is achieved through a forum (active for almost a decade) on Troika Ranch’s website in which users share ideas, asking advice re problems they are encountering, and so on. 11 Details and images of these works can be found on http://www.troikaranch.org/vid-­‐loopDiver.html 12 In this context digitised images that constitute representations of performers. 13 Creating a ‘digital double’ entails creating a digital image of a performer by capturing a video image of the dancer in realtime with a camera linked to a computer, transferring it into a digital software programme, and rendering it into a video image. Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 6 might alter the speed of the movement their double is performing, moving to the left might make the digital double move to the left with them, or alternatively move away from them to the right. Or the size of the digital double can be increased and decreased, giving the impression of the digitally generated figure moving forwards and backwards. The digital image might even be transformed into a more (or less) abstract image that dances (Loopdriver, global drifts, Eros~Eris), thus creating a moving scenography that enhances the kinetic images being presented on the stage. This simple technique of doubling up the performer’s visible image opens out any number of possibilities for artistic content. As Dixon (2007) points out, there are implicit philosophical meanings in the very act of a performer dancing a duet with their digital double, especially if the appearance of the double is delayed to create a visible 'memory' of themselves as they were a few seconds or even a minute ago, or (if pre-recorded video material is used) dance a duet with an inhabitant of the world of the past, or indeed with a little imagination, of the future. The digital double is, it transpires, much more than a mere digital shadow, possessing much more potential for meaning and significance than the shadow cast by light or by the sun. Indeed it could be taken as a form a digital 'other', to adapt terminology that emerged with midtwentieth century European philosophers (Dixon 2007), with all the philosophical implications that that concept embodies. Further, such techniques can make explicit the interplay between past, present and future that runs through our lives and colours our being in the present, future and even the past (for memories are the traces of the past, and are notoriously open to modification over time). For example, philosophical and socio-cultural questions concerning whether we are the same individual/society in the present as we were in the past might be addressed by a digital choreographer using this technique. As might questions as to which is in control, the past or the present – or even the potentialities of the future? Is it the past that is in control of the present, or does the present interrogate the past by bringing to bear its experience of the world of the now? Further, can the potentialities inherent in the future seep into our way of being in the present? As these questions exercise people at not only an individual but also a cultural level, the possibilities digital media holds for an articulation of the intricate dialogues between traditional and contemporary performance styles or of cross-cultural choreographic dialogues are, I would suggest, worthy of consideration. Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 7 Another technique that is inherent in digital media and of use to the digital choreographer is the use of multiple video images derived from one source projected simultaneously in a performance/installation space. Here the movement of a single performer is captured and replayed with different time delays in different parts of the stage or installation environment Through this it becomes possible to create what appears to be a whole cast of dancers from the movement of one dancer, opening the possibility of creating an ensemble work for one performer, or of populating an entire installation with a cast of moving images from one phrase of movement material. If one or more of those images is subjected to even simple choreographic manipulation using digital software, for example slowing the tempo of its movement down, or speeding it up, bringing each 'shadow' to visibility at different times to create a canonic sequence, changing the facing of the image (e.g. from facing left to facing right, and thus setting up different directional orientations between figures) an intricate choreography for a group can be created from a limited number of movement phrases performed by only one dancer. Any number of artistic themes can be pursued using this technique, and any number of interpretations brought to bear on it. For example, if different images are subjected to different video processing techniques they can be given a different texture, and with it a different nuance of significance. As an example, vigorous full colour video could also be displayed as a subtly faded blue video image, as a dark shadow, as an almost invisible blur of movement, as a shimmering trace of a body in motion. If projected not only onto the cyclorama but onto a series of surfaces placed in the performance space, a small stage can be populated with multiple versions of a single performer, bringing with it a raft of potential meanings that go far beyond the mere fact of the presence of the technological. At the level of artistic content these techniques can allow a digital choreographer to interrogate contemporary understandings of the self, which posit that we do not have just one self or one identity but embody multiple selves, multiple identities (Sarup 1996; Bhabha, 2004). As such, issues of diversity within the individual can be addressed, as can notions of difference and sameness, a favoured topic of poststructuralist philosophers in the late twentieth century. Further, if in a performance event the different selves are presented in digital form they can be processed in real time so that each digital double exhibits a different density of image, or size, and thus, for example, could be used to articulate a temporary prominence or reduced significance within the individual’s Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 8 identity at that moment. By exploiting the possibilities of the technologies we now have available to us, the performer could thus have a performance 'conversation' with digital manifestations of different 'versions' of themselves, and in doing so (perhaps) re-present the internal dialogue that takes place between the multiplicity of ‘beings’ from which they are constituted as individuals. This notion could be extended by an artist to interrogate both the diversity and commonalities inherent within their culture. At first sight all this would seem to be incompatible with traditional performance practices, whether dance or music. However as the title of this presentation is “Dancing Between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media” I would like to explore the possibility that the use of digital media can be a powerful way of revealing a number of resonances between the traditional and the contemporary. One way of doing this does not, of course, entail the use of digital media. Those ways of being, thinking and feeling that are preserved in traditional dance corporeally, and preserved visually through costuming, form one perspective of the foundations of a culture’s corporeal identity, an identity that reflects embedded social mores and remain as visible evidence of a cultural history within contemporary society. Consequently, merely by performing traditional dance movement in the same theatrical frame as contemporary manifestations of that movement, as artists such as Pichet Klunchun do, the corporeal resonances of the traditional ways of being that contribute to a culture’s identity, which are already embedded in the contemporary movement behaviours of a people, can be made evident. However, in the 21 century, it is equally important to address the new forms of movement expression that are being made available through cultural exchange across countries and societies, and interrogate the impact these might be having on traditional forms of expression at a corporeal level, and of course vice versa. Digital media, I would suggest, is another, equally viable, means of interrogating the relationship between the past and the present, whether within an individual or a culture. It has the potential to articulate our continuing conversation between the past and the present and its continuing importance to that sense of 'being in the world' that 14 Here it is perhaps important to state my position re the very notion of a culture. I am of the persuasion that any culture is in a dynamic, complex and ever changing state. Not composed of discrete parts but constituting a web of elements, approaches, conceptual and social frameworks, all of which are in a constant state of interaction, I take the position that a culture, even an artistic culture, can never be unaffected by the changing ways of being of those who engage in and with it, and bring their everyday world with them in subtle ways to their artistic forms of expression. Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 9 is evident amongst so many of the peoples of countries with a living tradition of dance, and thus a living corporeal identity that is rooted in the past. But how might this happen? In recent works I have begun to explore a number of ideas that, I now realise, have had an impact on my thinking with respect to the way that digital media could serve as one means of interrogating the dialogue between the traditional and the contemporary. For example a notion I explored in Eros~Eris, a work created with choreographer Liz Lea that saw live and digital choreography presented as equal partners on the stage, used digital imagery of one the performers to create a sense of that performer being observed by a virtual ‘other’ as she danced in the 'real' world of the stage. In some sections a huge image of the face and upper body of the central female character, seemingly encased in fire, oversees the duets taking place between the live female performer and her male partner. In such sections of Eros~Eris the incorporation of this imagery could be subject to any number of interpretations. For example, it could be interpreted merely as another presence entering the narrative journey that is taking place between the two dancers, or as another performer sharing the stage with the live dancers and subtly commenting on what is going on, or it could even be seen as the consciousness of one of the live dancers observing the activities of her fleshly host who lives and breathes in the 'real' world. Such techniques have found its way into Thai Tracings, the installation I am presenting at this conference, using live video capture to present an interplay between live and pre-recorded imagery of traditional Thai dancers, by the overlaying, or pairing up of contemporary and traditional dancers in the same image, and through the use of live video capture that allows visitors to perceive themselves dancing, and thus becoming at one and the same time the observer and the observed. In another section from Eros~Eris the gentle drift of mist that rises behind the live dancer at the front of the stage constitutes the final image of the piece. 15 I use the term ‘living tradition’ as long periods of working with traditional African and classical South Asian dancers, and with them interrogating the notion of a fixed dance tradition, indicates that the authenticity of a tradition cannot be traced back to an unchallengeable moment in history that can be claimed as moment that an art form was expressed in its most authentic form. 16 Video footage of this section can be accessed on http://www.sensedigital.co.uk/EE3.htm 17 For those with a philosophical turn of mind this could be interpreted as an implicit articulation of Merleau Ponty’s notion of reversibility, in that at one and the same time the visitor is the perceiving subject and the object of perception, leaving no real distinction between the act of perceiving and the thing perceived. Video footage of this sections can be found on http://www.sensedigital.co.uk/EE4.htm (excerpt 6) 18 In the context of this symposium its is of interest that the movement I used to create this transformation was a traditional Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 10 Eros~Eris (2006). (chor. Liz Lea, digital imagery Sarah Rubidge) In terms of content this combination of images could be offering a representation of the corporeal identity of the individual that flows from the surface of their skin or hinting at the escaping life energies of the performer as the partnership between her and the male dancer comes to a close, or reminding its audiences of the ephemerality of expressions of human thoughts that escape even as they are performed. An even more subtle expression of this lies in the highly processed, abstract digital imagery that is projected onto the pendulum that forms one part of the set of Eros~Eris. In this section of the work, the imagery is derived from a video of movement that was performed by the female performer in a previous work, global drifts (2006), and in my choreographic mind becomes one form of the past intervening in the present. On the stage this imagery seems to dance in its own right, providing not merely a background to the more corporeal activity taking place on the stage but also presenting a reminder of another time, another place, another sensibility, one that remains within the performer’s body, hidden beneath the surface. Ideas such as these have found their way into Thai Tracings through the overlaying of highly processed digital imagery of traditional dancers that intervenes in contemporary urban environments. Bharata Natyam movement. Although of Caucasian origins, as well as being trained as a contemporary dancer, Lea is a professionally trained Bharata Natyam dancer, having lived in South Asia for some years. Like Shobana Jeyasingh, a British South Asian choreographer who is now recognised as a creator of contemporary dance works, and artists such as Pichet Klunchun, she incorporates selected traditional dance gestures/sequences and movement in her contemporary choreographic expression as a means of exploring the interrelations between traditional dance and contemporary sensibilities. 19 Video footage of this section can be accessed on http://www.sensedigital.co.uk/EE1.htm (excerpt 2) Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 11 Screenshot from Thai Tracings (Sarah Rubidge) In Thai Tracings I also revisited ideas underpinning two very early digital/choreographic installations created with collaborators in 2001, Hidden Histories and Time & Tide (two works that address the notion that the past and the present intertwine). In these works I used video footage of ordinary movement and referenced the inhabitants of the sites through history. In Thai Tracings, which has been made specifically for the World Symposium of South East Asian Performing Arts, I wanted to explore the interplay between histories that seem to lie at the heart of so many South East Asian cultures. I have utilised video footage of Thai traditional dancers as a basis for the movement content of the work, sometimes without transformation, at other times transforming them into dancing shadows, or into misty traces of presences that once were, using artistic means hinting at those mutations that occur as we recall our memories of times past. I then set up a resonance between the movement imagery and urban environments to open for comment the interplay between tradition and the contemporary world that is evident in Thailand. For example, it seems that in the 21st century the act of shopping in increasingly 20 These sites being the centre of Winchester and Bosham near Chichester in the UK, both of which have a recorded history of human occupation extending back several centuries. More details on these works can be found on www.sensedigital.co.uk/choreography.htm Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 12 globalised urban environments has become an integral part of the expression of identity for many. In South East Asia this sits effortlessly alongside regular visits to Buddhist temples and a love of traditional and classical art forms. By overlaying the digital images of traditional dancers on contemporary environments (the Skytrain that flows over and around Bangkok, the incessant flow of urban traffic, 21st century shopping malls) new perspectives on the way past and present play against and with each other in contemporary society can be opened up for contemplation. Screenshot from Thai Tracings (dig.artist: Sarah Rubidge) The potential for the use of digital technologies to articulate ideas that emerge from an interrogation of the role of traditional dance in a contemporary culture is implicitly explored in this piece. For example, I have transformed raw video imagery of traditional dancers into a contemporary version of shadow puppets, one means of articulating the notion that the past infiltrates the world of the present, and the present infiltrates the world of the past. Conversely, some of the imagery in Thai Tracings implicitly addresses the notion that a spiritual self accompanies life's journey (by no means a solely Asian concept) by overlaying differently processed images of traditional dancers over the contemporary environment in which we live and work. Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 13 Screenshot from Thai Tracings (dig.artist: Sarah Rubidge) It seems to me that processes such as those described above could be directly applied to stage performances of traditional dance forms, with digital dancers becoming another group of dancers working alongside and having a conversation with their traditional counterparts. Alongside the interrogations of the role of traditional dance in contemporary society that many artists in South East Asia are embarking on, the presence of a cast of digital dancers could be used as another way of giving different resonances to the narratives that underpin traditional dance forms, another way of commenting on the relevance of those forms to those who live, work in and breathe the environments of the 21st century. I therefore suggest that approaching traditional dance using a digital lens can offer invaluable new ways of understanding the inherent potential for new expressive content within traditional forms without compromising their underlying principles. I further suggest that digital media could have a valuable contribution to make to as traditional dance forms begin to address the inevitable transformations of meaning that accompany the contemporary sensibilities of both performers and audiences, and at the same time bring to attention the way in which the cultural and social mores articulated in traditional dance forms affect the ways of being that emerge as contemporary societies respond to the world they inhabit. Dancing between traditional and Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge 14 contemporary choreographic sensibilities, in short, offers a means of adopting “an approach to cultural diversity which takes account of its dynamic nature and the challenges of identity associated with cultural change” (Kutukdjian and Corbett, UNESCO, 2009, p.5). Sarah Rubidge, Digital Choreographer and Professor of Choreography and New Media, University of Chichester, UK It is requested that you do not quote from or cite in any way this unpublished paper without consulting the author. (email. [email protected]) With thanks to the British Council, Thailand for its generous support for this project Dancing between the Traditional and the Contemporary with Digital Media: Sarah Rubidge