Users can create and swap different tap dances on their Palm device. The less-than-fluid movements of many crude Web video productions or the simple animations created for PDAs seem more akin to a tap dancer's jerky motions rather than the graceful pirouettes of a ballerina.
Taking this cue and using technical limitations to his advantage, digital artist James Buckhouse created Tap, a project that allows users to download and control two animated tap dancers on the Web or from Palm beaming stations around New York City.
Buckhouse's project, which he developed with the help of Holly Brubach, the former New York Times style editor, launches Friday and will run through July 27.
"I suggested tap for a number of reasons, chief among them, the fact that it doesn't 'travel' as much as ballet does --that it tends to be much more in place, which makes it ideal for a small vertical screen," Brubach, who teaches tap dancing in Milan, Italy, said.
Those who want to unleash their inner Vaudeville performer can combine the 16 different moves that the two perfectly postured yet faceless animated characters are programmed to perform. These moves include a simple side-kick and a toe-tap. Users can pass the dancers to other users or share original choreography, and dances can be saved and replayed.
The movements are underwhelmingly basic, the dancers a bit robotic, and the pixilated animation has a slight shadowy trail that can leave viewers a little dizzy. Yet the satisfaction of choreographing an original routine by trial and error is a bit of a low-adrenaline rush, sort of like performing on stage for the first time without breaking a sweat.
Buckhouse hopes that users will appreciate the learning curve that the animated dancers must overcome.
"I wanted to address the difference between the acquisition of data and the acquisition of knowledge," Buckhouse said. "In Tap, the characters cannot dance very well at first. They stumble, they make mistakes, and must practice to improve."
So, then, could Tap be a tool used to actually create or teach dance moves, rather than exclusively an art piece?
"I doubt that the project has practical applications for choreographers, in that it takes a (necessarily) rather reductive view of the steps. Here, the steps are building blocks, which are fun, we hope," said Brubach, who vaguely resembles one of the faceless figures. The dancers, one male, one female, are modeled after Brubach and New York City Ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.
"However," she adds, "four of my former students are looking forward to downloading the project as a reminder of the exercises they learned."
Tap is not the first high-profile digital dance project to be launched.
In the mid 1990s, legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham experimented with computerized choreography and respected dancer Molissa Fenley created a modern dance number to be shown exclusively online.
Tap was commissioned by Manhattan's Dia Center for the Arts, which is hosting its home page. The project was also selected for inclusion in the prestigious Whitney Biennial exhibition, which will feature a Palm beaming station for the duration of the show from March 7 to May 26.
Having the imprimatur of two well-known institutions indicates that Tap may mark a fresh new chapter in the short history of the marriage between new media and dance -- namely collaborative dance created and disseminated through the Web -- which some critics believe has been disappointingly slow in its development.
"I have yet to see an online dance piece that I find convincing," said Tilman Baumgaertel, the author of the newly released book net.art 2.0. "(Pioneering electronic artist) Nam June Paik said that you can create collaborative work online 'like a string quartet,' but the connection of bodies via the Net has not produced any viable results to my knowledge."
However, if one keeps in mind Buckhouse's motivations for creating Tap in the first place, it may be easy to look at the piece in a larger context.
The work might ultimately be seen as an exploration of the value and exchange of information rather than an attempt at choreographing earth-shattering new routines.
"The piece suggests the value of developing an understanding, rather than a stockpile, of data," Buckhouse said. "Through practice, spontaneity and exchange, we can gain both knowledge and, possibly, some sense of wisdom from the experience."
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