At the intersection of music, dance, and computational design, "Proxies" is currently in development as a transdisciplinary production set to premiere in 2026. The work considers what aspects of embodied experience can and cannot be captured through wearable technology, drawing from research on loneliness, empathy, and ethics of care in the 21st century.

 

In its current iteration, the production begins with a duet between two dancers wearing custom-fabricated gloves and insoles that capture physiological data from their shared movement. These data are translated in real time into a visual notation, which is then interpreted by two musicians (Eric Seligman and Mel Hsu) who iterate on different dimensions of musicality using material from Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. The dancers continue the iterative loop by responding to the music; their movement is then captured by proxy through the wearables, thereby initiating a cyclical negotiation between movement and sound. The choreography examines the relationship between body and technology, interrogating the limits of kinesthetic resolution in what can be captured through the wearables. The choreography develops to explore other kinds of relationships, including individuals to themselves, each other, the environment, and broader institutional structures of intimacy and care.

 

“Proxies” simultaneously gestures to two investigations: first, an inquiry into and critique of the assumption that data can be a “stand-in” and an approximation of reality, and second, an attempt to render visible the nuances of lived experience that are lost in datafied representations. This serves as a way to illuminate the embodied relationships that data are meant to represent but fail to do so in high fidelity — that is, what dimensions of embodied experience we become dispossessed of if data have more rights than people do. As a whole, the creative project is intended as its own provocation to consider not only the limits of what can be captured through technology, but also how the fidelity of what is captured may be compromised when moving across kinesthetic, computational, visual, and musical representations. 

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The project is supported by the Knight Foundation, Jacob's Pillow "Pillow Lab", Boston Foundation "Live Arts Boston" Grant, and the ArtLab at Harvard University. View the ongoing case study, designed with Steven Geofrey. 

 

Creative Team:

Artistic Director: Ilya Vidrin

Visualization: Steven Geofrey

Creative Technologist: Peter Martel

Engineering + Fabrication: Eugene Zeleny

Wearable Glove Design: Rosa Weinberg

Musicians: Eric Seligman and Mel Hsu

Movement Artists: Margot Aknin, Dara Capley, Elizabeth Epsen, Hannah Franz, Raxel Kempenaar, Leah Misano, Melissa Sherman-Bennett, Valeria Solomonoff, and Cassie Wang.

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Cinematography by Sue Murad

Process film created by Jessi Stegall

Production Assistant: Krista Brochu