Interview: Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre’s autoplay, transforming the stage into a playground of possibilities

Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre is premiering its new full-length work, autoplay in Cape Town, September 10 – 28, 2024. This is its first season since 2019 in Cape Town and is a wonderful opportunity to experience the work of the innovative company. Artistic director and choreographer, Louise Coetzer muses that she is intrigued by the “delicate tango we dance with machines in our daily lives” and autoplay unpacks a great deal on how we navigate our “identity and autonomy”:

TCR: Is autoplay site responsive/specific? Could it be presented in another site in another city?

Louise Coetzer: The appeal of this location in Cape Town is that it acts as blank canvas, where we present a moving installation performance. The work is not limited to this location, as it will be adapted for performance within theatre and alternative spaces in future. autoplay forms part of our tour ready repertoire for 2024/25 and will be presented in various locations and for festivals. This adds to the immediacy of each performance run, as the visual and sonic backdrop of every location will contribute new and unique elements to each performance.

The work re-imagines itself through its generative score. Parts of the music is created live by the dancers, then sampled by Brydon Bolton and reshaped through digitised processing. So there is some control over this process, but as with most AI systems, the outcome is somewhat unpredictable and presents itself with variations. Within this structure, vocalist Inge Beckmann layers live responses to these outcomes, forming a rich tapestry of sound and motion.

TCR: Can you tell us about the genesis of autoplay? What was the catalyst for this work? The concept of autoplay is the “functionality that causes a video, audio file, etc. to play automatically, without action from a user”. Was there a specific moment that pinged for you or are you tapping into a global sense that things are kind of out of our control in this mad and sad world?

LC: At the centre of the performance, sits questions of identity and autonomy: free thought vs dependence, influence vs individualism, independence vs learnt behaviour – the work exposes these tensions while interacting with machine learning, and taps into the global sense that things are spinning out of our control.

The rapid advancement of machine learning technologies holds immense excitement, but is also tempered with a slight measure of terror. We aren’t too alarmed, but should we be?  There’s little time left to control its trajectory, yet we find ourselves detached, indifferent, entertained, addicted. autoplay delves into this seemingly contradictory, but accepted, reality. The resulting assemblage tries to make sense of this moment, where control and choice become abstract concepts, while our uncritical acceptance keeps the wheels turning.

autoplay hints at this direct meaning: ‘automatically, without action from a user’. There is a great deal of automation to this current moment, and this links to the work’s reference to AI, which allows us to automate text, imagery, video, etc.  Through this referencing of machine learning in the context of schooling and play, autoplay questions to what degree autonomy and free will remain accessible. Are we able to hold on to true identity within a landscape where our digital selves are defined by algorithms?

It touches on the volatility of our exchanges with AI. Within its convenience and time saving appeal, there is a sense that we are giving away something in that exchange. Giving away our ownership of IP? Or giving away the process of creating/ crafting something for the sake of convenience.

The research process included a great deal of interaction with various artificial intelligence systems, and this informed the structure of the work. The initial research exercise asked AI to create the structure and scenes for the work, according to the prompts given. The AI generated various possible iterations of the work, its potential musical and visual approaches and thematic scenes. We also had many conversations around the theme of autonomy and identity, and experiments around AI interactions: does a system view itself as a being, how does it see itself, can it be provoked to portray any human like characteristics, who’s opinions is it generating.

I am consistently drawn to understand the delicate tango we dance with machines in our daily lives, part indispensable aide, part volatile negotiation. How much is given up in this exchange, and at what cost. The work probes the creative possibilities of contemporary performance using computers as creative partners, and augments the experience for the audience using digital technology.

autoplay continues Darkroom Contemporary’s ethos of presenting works that speak ‘of the times’.

TCR: Can you talk about how autoplay blends “dance, Live Art performance, sound installation and digital art” and what you mean by “a range of alternate dimensions”? It sounds like a multiverse we will be sitting in?

autoplay transforms the stage into a playground of possibilities, where each performance reshapes and redefines the performers’ digital selves. Through this process, the performance dismantles our preconceived notions of human digitization, as it merges the dialogue between its characters and the world they inhabit, to blur the lines between reality, fiction, memory and digital noise.

The performance plays with dimension, as it creates a surreal landscape that ebbs and shifts at it frames the experience. The floor is used as canvas, the ‘backstage’ workings are complete revealed, and the design echoes this feeling of spinning out of control.

The work draws sharp contrast between the organic and inorganic, the analogue and digitised. This is echoed in the design, which uses traditional and old-school symbols of learning to frame the surrealism of the machine generated score, theme and structure. There’s a deliberate choice to stay away from literal depictions of machines and screens, instead creating a juxtaposition between new and old, lo – fi and future. autoplay uses absurdity and satire to challenge the acceptance of our dystopian present. By blending traditional and contemporary symbols of learning, autoplay imagines us learning to navigate a brave new world.

TCR: Further to Live Art – is every performance different because of fluid elements like live art?

LC: The performance has a set structure and score, but within that framework, live elements emerge with variations. Parts of the score are created in real time, through a process of live sampling and digital processing. This includes vocal sections that are created in response to the performance, with variations. Other elements include the fluid visual elements and how they unfold for each performance.

autoplay blends elements of immersive installation, live art, physical theatre, sonic installation, and dance theatre to create a multisensory journey. Framed by the complexities of identity autonomy, the performance aims to engage participants on a profound exploration of the human experience in the digital age.

TCR: Insights into the dance – anything you can share- particularly for non-dance people who are looking for access points? There are four dancers – Bronwyn Craddock, Darion Adams, Vuyelwa Phota and Gabrielle Fairhead. Insights?

LC: This hybrid performance is a surreal convergence of dance theatre, live art, manufactured soundscapes, opera, polyrhythms and Artificial Intelligence. autoplay uses absurdity and satire to challenge the acceptance of our dystopian present.

So it offers plenty for audiences outside of the dance supporters. However, it uses the medium of dance as its main language component, and the dancers are phenomenal performers who bring unique personality and interpretation to the work.

Consisting of six scenes, this charged game of musical chairs confronts questions of agency, autonomy, influence and the blurred boundaries between free will and manipulation in a digital age. The scenes move between moments of play, satire and absurdity, unfolding as a dialectical interplay between the corporeal and the virtual, unraveling the intricate threads of human digitization. In doing so, it beckons spectators to confront the ethical quandaries and existential implications inherent in our digitally mediated existence, transcending mere entertainment to provoke profound introspection.

TCR: Can you tell is about the use of voice? I have not seenvocalists in a Darkroom piece?

LC: My works are informed by the research and development processes around their subjects, so the outcomes are always radically different. I’m driven by curiosity to discover new performance presentation modes, and try to avoid revisiting processes from past works. My interest in making work is always towards new discovery and unique outcomes, so the materials I am drawn to work with, are entirely different to what I have done before.

In this case, the use of voice ties in with the work’s juxtaposition between organic and digitised, so made sense as musical approach. Stylistically, the music and use of voice in autoplay are very different to recent works like ULTRA or memoryhouse, for example. The concept references a sharp contrast between the human, organic and the digitised, machine. The score illustrates this through utilising sound that comes from the body (voice, percussion), sampling this, and then allowing the digital processes to manipulate these sound cycles.

However, we have used vocalists in previous Darkroom Contemporary programmes such as UNFINISHED ( a curated experimental platform for choreographers to present works – in – progress). I’ve also worked with vocalist Matinino for my site responsive work SWARM in 2013, and Darkroom Contemporary’s first performance project in 2010 included live music with vocals by Lorez.

TCR: Is this the premiere of autoplay? Has it been staged at festivals? Or have extracts been presented?

LC: This is the premiere of autoplay, it is a new work that has been in development since May 2024. This is Darkroom Contemporary’s first Cape Town season since 2019, as the company has been focused on touring and festival activities in the past few years. We don’t present performance work in Cape Town regularly, so this is a unique opportunity to experience this new work as it premieres in the mother city.

TCR: Insights into the design – set, costumes, conceptual arc? Insights into imaging autoplay?

autoplay is a surreal landscape that ebbs and shifts as part of the experience. The work consist of six episodes, and within this framework, we experience varying points of view on the concept of autonomy and identity within a digitised world. autoplay imagines to what extent we are learning to navigate a brave new world. It juxtaposes organic human -ness with digitised machine -ness and questions our acceptance of a dystopian present. It promises a unique experience and the rare opportunity to witness Darkroom Contemporary’s work in Cape Town. 

autoplay transforms the stage into a playground of possibilities, where each performance reshapes and redefines the performers’ digital selves. Through this process, the performance dismantles our preconceived notions of human digitization and prompts reflection on the nature of our increasingly digitized realities.

✳ Vuyelwa Phota in Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre’s autoplay, September 10 – 28, 2024. Photo by Oscar O Ryan.