This week, AMT Lab looks back on our Dance research to remember how dance and technology have fueled innovation for both.

Haptics

Haptic Feedback: Feeling the Dance You Cannot See: Dance is a heavily complex art form that relies on visual viewership from the audience. But for dancers, it is a carefully curated physical experience that requires a keen understanding of one’s body and movement. Staff Researcher Gabrielle Di Raddo explores haptic technology and how it can be incorporated with dance to make it a more immersive and accessible experience for a greater range of audiences.

How Haptics Affect Human-Robot Interaction in Dance: Christi Welter explores human-robot interaction in dance through touch. Humans are unique in our mode of physical interaction. This article gleans insight onto the human haptic system and how the sense of touch works, and then applies that to how it facilitates dance performances that present human-robot counterparts.

Technology-based Visualizations

Let’s Get Digital: Visualizing Movement in Dance: In this article, contributor Christi Welter reviews DanceForce, a software created to help choreographers visualize different sequences before implementing them into a routine. Her review gives an overview of the software and its capabilities, and gives a list of pros and cons of using it.

Mapping Movement: Network Mapping in the Dance Industry: Part 2: The second installation of a three-part series about data scraping, mapping and visualizations, focuses on using network mapping to create a broader understanding of the dance industry. Grace Puckett, staff researcher, explains how in dance, students are often hindered in learning great dance influences based on the nature of the practice. This project uses the digital humanities and data to create network maps of historical connections in the dance industry to show how it can be used for greater inclusion and education.