As artificial intelligence takes over the world, many artists seem primed to abandon their inhibitions and experiment with the latest innovations. Concordance between art and technology is harder to imagine in the field of dance. ChatGPT may now draw Studio Ghibli-style cartoons and draft opinion essays, but just like any hollow robotic entity, it would probably collapse from stage fright if thrust in front of an audience with a huge spotlight in its face. On the evening of April 18, Daniel Gwirtzman and Pat Catterson observed the contrast between spontaneous and programmed movement, a persistent tension in contemporary dance.
When attendees walked into the black-box hall of the LaMama Experimental Theater Club, Daniel Gwirtzman and his dance partner Sarah Hillmon were already on the stage, mechanically twitching in one place like broken wind-up toys. A big timer on the screen behind them ticked away, and the audience continued chattering until the room went completely dark. “Good morning!” a synthesized voice from above greeted another. Light shone on the performers’ frozen expressions. A new day began.
The value of a robot’s lifespan perennially depends on its performance functionality. On this evening, performing the choreography of Saviana Stănescu’s 2023 script e–Motion, Gwirtzman masterfully played “H,” a novice artificial intelligence model that tries to master human emotions like joy, sadness, anger, and love, but keeps crashing because the experience is too overwhelming. “Who are you?” H’s mentor, Ava, played by Hillmon, asks. This trap H finds himself in is a never-ending thought loop. He eventually breaks down as his limbs twitch in dissonance.
The lines of dialogue arrive through the speakers, and both robot mouths remain sealed as the dancers coordinate each movement to a phrase. “How do you feel?” Hillmon, an AI mentor of sorts, inquires while rigidly waltzing around Gwirtzman. “You know I can’t feel,” he responds in utter confusion. With all sentiment erased from his expression of thought, Gwirtzman’s interpretation of e–Motion, is profoundly chilling. The background screen emulates H’s neural pathways, his empty “inner world,” and when the robot finally comes face-to-face with an audience – the same audience observing the dance – the engineered lines of logic collapse into an endless vortex of stars.
OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, has consistently adapted its language and vision models to explore how AI can understand or generate movement. Choreographers can now input descriptive text into ChatGPT to generate novel movement ideas. The future seems to hold potential for full-blown AI performances, but Gwirtzman’s piece confronts, maybe even contradicts, this potential. By enacting the role of robot, Gwirtzman seeks to find, argue, and illuminate, the limits of mysterious, unpredictable technology. He shows, simply, that it can never handle human emotion fully. As such, e– Motion brushes off the idea that technology could ever fully take over art. But even so, as the performance ended, a sense of anxiety lingered in the air.
Two pieces by Pat Catterson followed Gwirtzman’s work. They felt like a breath of fresh air after e-Motion. As the piece began, a spotlight revealed dancer Mitzi Eppley in the bottom left corner of the stage. Wearing just a tank top and leggings, she stood motionless. All of a sudden, her face twitched as she attempted to catch an invisible butterfly between her palms. She didn’t feign feeling; everything in her body already signalled the need for physical self-expression. The resulting sequence, a piece titled Then, unfolded in just under six and a half minutes.
Catterson’s phrases are lightweight and grounded, rooted in nature. The designated score, Phillip Glass’s “Tissue No. 7,” matched the gentle firmness of Eppley’s positions and turns with its solo cello. Its delicate sound reverberated through the dancer, lifting her off the ground, and the whole scene was easy to imagine occurring outside the confines of a theater, perhaps in a blossoming field. The dance, and its dancing, couldn’t have been more different from its precursor, as Eppley’s urgent moves told the story of unrestrained emotion, and perhaps the desire to flee from immediate moments of pain.
Pat Catterson, a modern dancer and choreographer, came up in the postmodern tradition in Downtown New York– for instance, she danced for Yvonne Rainer– and has been at work for over five decades. A longtime teacher at The Juilliard School and Sarah Lawrence College, she has bridged generations by blending formal experimentation with a humanistic core. Her completed work includes over 100 choreographed pieces: an archive of contemporary movement, and a prolonged meditation on the way dance relates to natural surroundings. Both dances presented that evening at the festival were stripped of decorations, vivid costumes, or any set design whatsoever. Her dazzling movements were more than enough.
Immediately after Eppley’s figure dissolved into darkness, five new dancers ran onto the stage, and Tremor, Catterson’s next piece, began. They wore light summery outfits: tank tops and multiple floral pieces of clothing. The sound of thunder coming through the speaker seemed to move them – it was about to rain, and their expressions suggested this storm might change everything for good. As they anxiously scattered around the stage, one performer, Sarah Slifer Swift, was left to fend for herself as she absent-mindedly danced center-stage. What had transpired was not clear, but relating to the dancers’ sense of uncertainty was easy, with the day’s news headlines spanning deportations, lawsuits, and peace talks. At this point in the performance, the sound of rain pouring down came from the speaker. The group took turns dancing in duets and trios, as an apparent act of support. The dancers made big, sprawling movements to fend off their anxiety. “Where will we go?” one dancer screamed. “Will there be anything left?” another responded. A white light emanated from an obscured window, and the five dancers gathered around it, hoping to find their answer.
With her organic choreography, both fleeting and memorable, Catterson reaffirmed my belief that there are ways of self-expression and movement creation that artificial intelligence can never muster. Responding to anxieties about the future of the modern world with more familiarity and urgency, Catterson’s dancers brought a sense of relief needed after e-Motion. The magic of dance requires firm control over one’s emotions, and then a willingness to let go of that control. Gwirtzman’s robot could understand human nature, but it can never dance it. Through her lived embodied experiences, Catterson emerged as the victor in that evening’s battle of approach.
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