Choreography of sonic chopsticks and intervention of digital technology with dancing bodies

Performing with chopsticks, in the interaction between dancing bodies and digital technology (software, web-cameras, sensors and projectors), raises questions about new forms of choreography and the consideration of cultural identity in the adoption of technology, when such dancing bodies are mediated by computer programming. Following the notion of the choreographic systems conceived by choreographer/digital performance scholar Johannes Birringer for his metakimospheres, I use ordinary objects from Chinese everyday life such as chopsticks as an interface to engage with dancing bodies from the perspective of a choreographer trained in Chinese dance traditions. The use of chopsticks in my practice-based research connects to recent sonic arts experiments with sounding materials and recontextualized electronic instruments, and this article explores the sticks as multivalent props or extended instruments which also act as a kind of microcontroller (eliciting sounds through microphonic and software interaction). The convergence of sonic chopsticks and computer-mediated dancing bodies raises images of violence and nostalgia in the dance pieces 'Qi' (Breath) and 'Xun' (Looking For), which are part of the project 'X-Body', a full-length digital dance work. Embracing a transdisciplinary perspective, this paper examines the configurations of dancing bodies associated with specific interactive technologies, ordinary objects and movement, and probes some of the dimensions of cultural performance in digital choreography