Scott deLahunta

Scott deLahunta works from his base in Amsterdam and Berlin as a researcher, writer, consultant and organiser on a range of international projects bringing performing arts with a focus on choreography into conjunction with other disciplines and practices. He serves on the editorial boards of Performance Research, Dance Theatre Journal and the International Journal of Performance and Digital Media.

As a member of the ARTI group he was the co-director of Inside Movement Knowledge, International Coordinator of R-Research by Wayne McGregor|Random Dance and developing his on-line book project writings 1996-2006. Outside the academy context, he is also working as Special Advisor to Siobhan Davies’ Replay and as an International Advisor to Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, Reproduced by William Forsythe. He is the project leader of Forsythe’s most recent research project Motion Bank: the development of a new system of on-line digital scores in collaboration with selected guest choreographers to be made publicly available to artists, dance scholars and the professional field. In 2010 Scott obtained his PhD at the University of Plymouth.

Digital interfaces as creative tools
There are many fields of practice concerned with the recording, analysing, archiving, modelling, documenting, simulating and notating of human movement. These include choreography and dance, architecture, cognitive and computer science, film animation, visual anthropology, biomechanics, engineering and technology research. The research project Digital interfaces as creative tools speculates on the potential of a set of shared standards and procedures for movement research that emphasises the value of choreography and dance in relation to other fields of practice. Outcomes include the development of cross institutional collaborations and hybrid laboratories, like the interdisciplinary research project Inside Movement Knowledge, co-directed by Bertha Bermúdez. But also to theorize further about how choreographic ideas and dance knowledge can be expressed other than through the body.

Scott obtained his PHD at the University of Plymouth with a collection of thirty written works published from 1999 to 2007 in various formats and platforms. Shifting Interfaces: art research at the intersections of live performance and technology forms the consolidation of his practice-led inter-disciplinary, collaborative, artistic research into deepening understanding of creative process in the field of contemporary dance.

Selected publications

  • Choreographic Resources: Agents, Archives, Scores and Installations, co-author: Norah Zuniga Shaw. in: Performance Research, 13:2. On Choreography, 2009, pp. 131-133.
  • Augmenting Choreography: using insights from Cognitive Science, co-authors: Phil Barnard, Wayne McGregor. in: Routledge Reader in Contemporary Choreography, eds. Jo Butterworth and Liesbeth Wildschut. London: Routledge, 2009.
  • Scott deLahunta in conversation with ICKamsterdam, published in: ICK and the Other, Amsterdam 2009
  • Blurring the Boundaries: interactions between choreography, dance and new media technologies, in: Interface Cultures ­ Artistic Aspects on Interaction, eds. Sommerer C., Mignonneau L., Gestrich D. transcript: Bielefeld. pp. 225-235.
  • Permuting Connections: Software for Dancers, in: Sound Unbound - an anthology on Sound Art, Digital Media and new Compositional Strategy. Ed. Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2008. pp. 265-272.
  • Editor/ Author: SwanQuake. The User Manual. Plymouth, UK: Liquid Press/ i-DAT, 2008.
  • Flickering and Change: with Meg Stuart ". in: Knowledge in Motion, eds: Sabine Gehm, Pirkko Husemann and Katharina von Wilcke. Bielefeld: transcript. 2007. pp. 129-135.
  • Talking About Scores: William Forsythe's vision for a new form of dance 'literature', co-authors: Rebecca Groves and Norah Zuniga Shaw. in: Knowledge in Motion, eds: Sabine Gehm, Pirkko Husemann and Katharina von Wilcke. Bielefeld: transcript, 2007, pp. 91-100.
  • Editor/ Author: Capturing Intention: documentation, analysis and notation research based on the work of Emio Greco | PC. Amsterdam, 2007.
  • Rethinking Tools: based on interviews collected during MODE05, co-author Eva-Maria Hoerster. in: Reverse Engineering Education: in dance, choreography and the performing arts. Follow-up reader for MODE05. b_books verlag: Berlin. 2007, pp. 88-95.
  • Co-editor with Ric Allsopp of: Performance Research, Digital Resources, 11:4. Co-curator of artistic contributions to DVD-ROM supplement. 2007.
  • Sharing Questions of Movement, in: De theatermaker als onderzoeker, Theater Topics, eds: Maaike Bleeker, Lucia van Heeteren, Chiel Kattenbelt, Kees Vuyk, Amsterdam University Press, 2006, pp.182-186.
Share