Neural Narratives: Dance with Virtual Body Extensions

From the context of two dance productions, the Neural Narratives project has started to emerge as a comprehensive exploration of simulation-based approaches that enable the creation of artificial body extensions for dancers. The simulation, visualisation and sonification of these body extensions allow a dancer to alter and enlarge his or her bodily presence and movement possibilities. The main focus of this publication lies in the contextualisation and discussion of a number of questions that have arisen during the realisation of the dance productions. These questions relate to concepts of embodiment, agency, and creativity and their possible implications for the realisation of interactive systems for dance. We try to address these questions by drawing from ideas that originate from a wide range of fields including dance and technology, cognitive science, systems science, and medical engineering. By connecting our own practical activities to a broad disciplinary context, we hope to contribute to a discourse concerning future directions for research and creation that deepen the integration of technology and dance.