Project Description
Directors: SinYu Deng, Kara Roseborough
Choreographer: Kara Roseborough
Robot Designers: Adam Schmidt, Jessi Carlson
Set Designers: Adam Schmidt, Addison Stone, Tao Chou
Audio Visual Designer: SinYu Deng
Light Designer: Tate Zeleznik
Style Designer: Dana Gray
Crew: Banks Krause, Jay Fang
Dancers: Kara Roseborough (Alice), Ginny Jian (Rabit), Timothy Tsang (Cat)
Cellist: Yun Han
“Asking Alice” is an interdisciplinary dance performance that offers a fresh perspective on Lewis Carroll’s beloved novels, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Through dance, the performance tells the story of Alice and her hesitant companion, the White Rabbit, as they venture down a rabbit hole and into a surreal world of anthropomorphic creatures.
In this reimagining, Alice straddles the line between human and artificial intelligence, causing her to question her own multifaceted identity as she becomes fully immersed in a dream-like reality of riddles and illusions. She grapples with the question of whether she is truly “herself” in any of her altered states, wondering at one point, “if I am no longer who I am, then the next question is, who am I? Well, that’s a big question!”
The performance opens up a discussion about the nature of AI. Is it simply a tool with no personality, or can it be considered a character with its own unique personality? Can an AI, which is essentially a copy of a human personality, possess enough uniqueness to be considered an individual? By constantly feeding the AI with data, such as the food and drink that Alice consumes in the story, the AI can begin to shape a fragmented personality. We envision the AI’s virtual soul as an undefined virtual set waiting to be shaped by its external environment, like a child.
As AI Alice falls down the rabbit hole into the computer world, it has no definition of itself and is confused about its identity. However, as the AI is fed with more information and its personality is constructed, it may have multiple conflicting orientations, causing the AI to feel confused. But eventually, the AI will no longer be a mere copy or hybrid creature. Instead, it will establish a clear consciousness and personality, becoming a new species with independent characteristics.
