STEM Café:

Dancing Bodies and Digital Interfaces: Dance, Movement and Media

Speaker:

Marc Macaranas, Assistant Professor and Dance Program Coordinator
School of Theatre and Dance

Marc Macaranas is a dance artist and movement media maker, as well as an assistant professor of dance and head of the dance program at NIU. Marc will discuss the process of choreographing for proscenium stages, non-traditional spaces and even cell phone screens. He’ll also talk about how he constructs and implements interactive digital media installations and creates projection design for dance and theatre. Marc hopes the audience will consider how digital devices and interfaces in their own lives work to “choreograph” their activities. 

Marc’s performance career began in 2006 with Lucky Plush Productions and Mordine & Co. Dance Theater. In 2008 he joined DanceWorks Chicago as a founding dancer. Since then, he has performed in Chicago, across North America and in Europe with companies that include Lucky Plush Productions, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Luna Negra Dance Theater, and RUBBERBANDance Group. Marc has conducted workshops, master classes and teaching residencies across the country for dance studios, circus schools, professional companies and university dance programs. He holds a BA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine, and an MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa.

Northern Illinois University STEM Cafés are part of NIU STEAM and are designed to increase public awareness of the critical role that STEM fields play in our everyday lives. They are offered in partnership with the NIU Alumni Association and made possible with support from additional sponsors and individual supporters.