Animate inscriptions, articulate data and algorithmic expressions of choreographic thinking

The twin questions of what constitutes choreographic knowledge and what traces it may or may not leave behind are perennial concerns in dance. And in recent decades the proliferation of digital media in our lives has radically expanded that question. But there is much to be done as makers and as scholars to trace and transfer dancing ideas and elucidate the processes by which alternative inscriptions come to be. To address this gap in the literature, this article unfolds the working processes and modes of articulation in two recent collaborative projects that have circulated widely and that I co-created at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD): Synchronous Objects (2009) with William Forsythe; and Motion Bank: TWO (2013) with Bebe Miller and Thomas Hauert. Together these works question the nature of choreographic thinking and seek to expand the range of meaningful articulations of dancing ideas.