JILLIAN GROENING

“Digital Uprising,”

This conversation began in January 2021 when, at a virtual gathering of dance critics hosted by The Dance Current, questions began to arise around the analysis of digital performance works. It had been almost a year since anyone had experienced a performance in person and, in speaking from our positions as dance critics, it became clear that not only does electronic culture continue to change the ways in which we perceive our environments, thus changing our experience of the environment itself, but that electronic media inherently transforms, and demands a revision of, the aesthetic categories used to evaluate performance. These points of discussion extended into emails and phone and video calls with numerous dance artists from across Canada, each conversation informing the direction of this article.