The avant-garde theatre of the 1960s era saw a shift away from conventional approaches to playwriting and characterization with an emphasis on movement, live sound and ensemble acting as a new way to create performances, often involving improvisation and even audience participation. In the 1970s and 1980s, political content in theatre subsided and many artists turned to more formal experimentation, incorporating technology, film, recorded sound and other elements in tandem with text, movement and choreography. In “The Movement’s Voice,” Assaf Benchetrit explores past advancements in the field as well as more current practices and innovations in dance and music, infusing computer science and technology, as well as improvisation, into his work as a choreographer. In this essay, he shares his discoveries, positing that his system offers new possibilities of creating dance and engaging dancers in rehearsals, with intriguing implications for traditional dance as well as theatrical forms that utilize dance, movement, music and technology.
