Digital Technologies and Contemporary Dance Practices in the Context of the Communicative Function

The article considers the communicative aspects of the results of the introduction of digital technologies in the practices of contemporary dance culture. Interdisciplinary experiments in the field of dance and technology, the tendency to enhance audiovisual effects in choreography and the departure from reality into virtual spaces reflect the complexity and contradictory nature of contemporary digital society. This confirms the need to apply cultural methodology to the study of the impact of digital technologies on contemporary dance practices. The application of digital technologies in the field of professional choreography has led to transformations at different stages of the process of creating a choreographic work from the composition plan to the rehearsal process. The introduction of video mapping and interactive systems, VR-technologies allowed to reach a new level of artistic communication with the audience. Communication platforms, video hosting and social networks in the sphere of mass culture and leisure activities contribute to strengthening the communicative functions of dance practices. Smartphone applications and game programmes for dance education promote new forms of dance communication. Interdisciplinary projects that bring together the art of choreography and technologies that function through the use of non-standard modes of input open up perspectives for research into the relationship between the digital and the real. The interactions between the dancer’s physical body and technological agents aim to find new forms of expression in dance. A number of experiments in choreography that use virtual environments and motion capture technologies aim to improve creative or training processes and to preserve cultural choreographic heritage. As a result, the authors identify the main areas of potential for the application of digital technologies as a tool for adding audiovisual data to a dance or choreographic production, including by transforming the kinetic information obtained during the movement of the performer. It also increases the volume and quality of data in the transmission, accumulation and storage of information in the process of dance communication; it provides a new level of interaction between the spectator and the dancer or performers.