Fleshing Out: Intermedial Bodies and Dancers-in-Code

Drawing on new media theory, particularly on Mark Hansen’s understanding of the ‘body-in-code’, this article explores the nature of the performing body as unfixed, in process and intrinsically intermedial. Both Wayne McGregor/Random Dance’s Undance and Klaus Obermaier’s Rites explore the very ontology of dance, the material body, in its relationship to the media technologies through which it is remediated, and affirm its rematerialisation. When viewed through a lens of new media theory, applications of new technologies onstage can be recognized as utilizing intermedial strategies to showcase the interconnection of human embodiment and media technology. The concept of intermediality and an understanding of the ‘intermedial body’ avoid reinforcing the opposition of disembodied information and material corporeality. Rather than suggesting the disappearance or undoing of the body, these works reposition the human body as active in the framing and function of new media technologies.