Main Menu

Dance²

Upcoming performances at PRAx Performing Arts Center at Oregon State University, January 2025.

COLLABORATORS Jonathan David Martin, Adriane Fang, Huaishu Peng, & Bill Kules

NEWSWORTHY Maryland Today "A Dramatic Step Forward in Robotics: Human Body Becomes Robot Playground in Project Funded by Arts for All Initiative

University of Maryland researchers are collaborating across disciplines to explore how a tiny robot, a dancer and an audience can help us understand the ever-evolving relationship between humans and technology.

DANCE²  is a dance installation about human-robot interaction and our collective feelings about technology’s influence on the future. Audiences will use their smartphones to interact with the performance, influencing the choreography of the human and robotic dancers. Through their choices, we will explore the question of whether emerging technology is bringing us closer together or pulling us farther apart.

Created through the generous support of an Arts for All ArtsAMP Collaborative Faculty Grant, UMD Immersive Media Design program, UMD School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UMD College of Information Studies, UMD Department of Art, and UMD Department of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.

Dancer in white leotard in front of a screen that reads Smooth with a red bar and the number 30 in white text in it.
Dancer in white leotard behind a frosted screen in a dance post under green lighting.
Two dancers in white leotards on the floor interacting with a small moveable robot with a white light on it.
Dancer in white leotard on the left side of the image under a white light and a viewer on the right side of the image under red light.
Audience members engaging with a phone application to indicate the next interaction the dancers will have with the small robot.
Audience members viewing image on a large projection screen. The image contains cats on the center top and center bottom.
Dancer in white leotard in encompassing black with a small amount of light coming from an interactive robot.
Back to Top