Computer-aided dance is an act of forgery

In a new performance by the Australasian Dance Collective, artificial intelligence calls the steps and the tune.

Australasian Dance Collective dancers rehearse a new production, Forgery, which will be debuted as part of the Brisbane Festival. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

An ensemble of dancers performing in real time under direction from a computer-choreographer may sound like something from science fiction, but that’s the way a new show, Forgery, will unfold in Brisbane from Wednesday night, danced by members of the Australasian Dance Collective.

It’s the work of choreographer Alisdair Macindoe, yet calling the steps, and the tune, is a computer program called Artificially Intelligent Dances.

Macindoe, a Melbourne-based independent choreographer, said Forgery was an experiment into whether AI could produce a plausible piece of contemporary dance. “Can a computer be an ­author, and be a forger in creating a new dance work?” he said.

“It’s uncanny … The performances have really mimicked how choreographers will often create work. And they satisfy a desire to watch a work that has depth and interest. I watch the dancers and … I enjoyed that show.”

Macindoe’s AID system, developed with choreographer and computer programmer Josh Mu, uses computer-generated voice and text projected on to the stage to direct the dancers.

The dancers and Macindoe y worked out choreographic phrases the AID program would process in different combinations, directions and speeds. It will also determine lighting, sound design, and even the dancers’ costumes. Each dancer has 14 garments of different colours that will be chosen by the computer algorithm.

“It’s not something the dancers can rehearse – there’s a combination of known and unknown things that are happening,” Macindoe said. “Watching this work, you start to think about how you might interpret the information. In invites you to analyse language and interpretation, and what creativity is, and what obedience and freedom and agency are.”

Forgery – featuring dancers Josephine Weise, Jack Lister, Lonii Garnons-Williams, Jag Popham, Chase Clegg-Robinson and Tyrel Dulvarie – is at the Cremorne Theatre as part of the Brisbane Festival.

Macindoe said his experiments with computers and contemporary dance were part of an artistic lineage that included choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage, who used chance and random variables in their work.

Computers had not killed choreography, Macindoe said, but pieces such as Forgery suggested possibilities for humans and machines working together.

“I’m a choreographer and I’m working with computers,” he said. “It may be impossible to kill the choreographer, no matter how hard you try.”