When the Move-Me booth was installed in Sadler's Wells this autumn, Radio 4's Front Row asked me to test-drive it with Mark Lawson. The installation hasn't really been designed for two people, and Mark and I bumped elbows and shuffled around rather awkwardly for a bit. But after a few minutes we were ready to stay for an afternoon.
For anyone who hasn't yet had the experience - you still can, as the booth is on an extended UK tour - Move Me is the dance equivalent of having your passport photo taken. Inside you choose from a menu of eight different "interactive" works, each of which delivers a set of recorded instructions which you dance along to in front of a discreet camera.
Some of the choreographers give you the option of rehearsing before you record, some don't. If you're brave you can press a button for an instant replay on the booth's tiny screen; if you're even braver you can watch yourself later on the website.
Mark and I both performed with the blithe conviction that our moves weren't actually going to be filed away - an illusion which accounted for some of our more unguarded moments. But the whole experience was much less self-conscious than I imagined. Nearly all the choreographers had come up with surprisingly interesting routines, and provided surprisingly direct snapshots of how they approach their craft.
I never realised how Spanish Rafael Bonachela's imagination was (his instructions to dance as though you had a wasp in your eye were pure Buñuel). Dancing in and out of shot with Mark to the rigorously timed commands of Shobana Jeyasingh, on the other hand, I felt I'd got weirdly to grips with the sharpness of Jeyasingh's editorial eye. Wriggling around the booth to Stephen Petronio felt liberating - although Mark and I were more ageing disco than cutting-edge hip-hop. Deborah Hay's excessively minimalist "turning dance", one 360-degree revolution spread out over two minutes, was more purist than I could be bothered with, especially given the chance to act up a tantrum in New Art Club's piece.
But I was left thinking how much fun it would be if the Wells and other selected venues could install permanent Move-Me booths in their foyers, so that each week we could get a physical taster of what was being danced on stage.
Or maybe not. Perhaps we'd all get so hooked on our two minutes of fame we'd stop bothering with the real thing.
