Nikolai and Celeste eschew mirrors in part because a dancer reliant on a mirror may develop a two dimensional understanding of themselves. A dancer looking at a mirror or two will always see their face. Head on. They may not see their chest front on (if, for example, their face and neck point in different directions), but there is a certain consistency where the same profiles are viewed repeatedly. In a four walled room with mirrors on all four walls, the profiles will also always be aligned with the walls. In this way profiles alone are not ideal for creating full three dimensional knowledge.

I have recently found myself dancing in a room and a zoom call where my camera and displays were in different sides and corners of the room. In this way, I got a new profile of myself. A side view. What if we take this further? What if we scatter cameras and displays around a space to create a wide and organic variety of profiles. Will these profiles serve to better create a three dimensional conception of self? Will these better leverage highlight to hone three dimensional proprioception? Will these have a more pronounced negative impact on many dancers’ self image? Will these create a greater reliance on eyesight and technology that inhibits internal proprioception? Is embracing technology different from depending on it?

Can we play with this concept safely, feasibly, and in an environment conducive to the generation of knowledge?

Methodological Source (What is a Citation?)

Halvor and I were talking and mathing and dancing about tensors: a way of formally mapping numbers onto reality (or another collection of numbers). As I twirled a lesbian pride flag to create a physical example to contextualize a stress tensor I caught sight of myself in profile on camera. I had never seen myself spin in a mirror, much less in profile, so this caught my attention and prompted these thoughts.