Different Bodies: Staging Bodies Dancing with Robots

The Different Bodies team met earlier this month to continue dancing with robots in the Cobot Maker Space at the University of Nottingham. Researchers from the Somabotics Fellowship – Rachael Garrett, Steve Benford, and Stacy Hseuh – met with Kate Marsh from Coventry University and choreographic partner Welly O’Brien for two and half days of research explorations.

The team also welcomed two new partners to the project. Annie Edwards is a talented freelance dance artist from Brighton whose artistic interests lie in improvisation, collaborative processes and disability advocacy. Choreographic leads Kate and Welly are excited to work with Annie in creating a unique and dynamic robotics performance. Jay Gearing from Red 7 Productions is a specialist in artistic and dance film producing and will be steering the documentation process and filming of the artwork.

In the workshop last week, the research team broached a unique design challenge: designing a stage that can support three dancers and two robots during different dance performances. The team mapped out potential stage designs with the support of senior technical specialist Simon Castle-Green. This generated interesting discussions into proxemics and possibilities of bringing dancing bodies and robots together in both lived and filmed performances. The construction of this unique stage is part of Different Bodies’ commitment to access-first and disability-led research.

Different Bodies will continue in April when the team will be joined by Kieran Woodward, Somabotics Research Fellow, who will present his research into using artificial intelligence models to generate robotic dance movements.

Placeholder Photo credit: Jay Gearing | Red 7 Productions