SpringerLink
Log in

How to dance, robot?

  • MAIN paper
  • Published:
AI & SOCIETY Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Informed by scholarship in dance studies, this essay examines the popular phenomenon of the dancing robot. It begins with an analysis of social robotics experiments that use techniques of contemporary experimental theater to frame human–robot interactions. With elements of theater history in mind, it becomes evident that such experimental designs fruitfully destabilize common understandings of social robots, theatrical performance, and dance movement. This sets up a discussion of a co-creative approach to develo** robot choreography which utilizes compositional techniques from experimental dance to, among other things, avoid cultural appropriation. Taken together, these points show that, because dance movement is culturally laden, scholarship in dance studies should be considered when designing dancing robots.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Canada)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Notes

  1. In a 2022 promotional campaign entitled “No Time to Dance,” Spot is shown performing bourrées in unison with a human actor. The dance sequences in the advertisement were choreographed by the author’s wife who was interviewed about the experience for this project.

  2. The process in which new movements are created, codified, and circulated nationally and internationally requires much more discussion. For some illuminating work in dance studies on this topic see Croft (2015), O’Shea (2007), Shay and Sellers-Young (2003).

  3. For discussions of other experimental approaches to choreographing see Burt (2006) and Cvejic (2016).

  4. During informal discussions with members of the Taipei dance community after viewing a performance of Huangyi’s more recent work Little Ant and Robot: A Nomad Café (2020) in Taipei, the concern was voiced that the work dehumanizes its dancers. For a theoretical account of this position see Chang (2014).

  5. Contra Cunningham, it needs to be noted that many approaches to improvisation developed since the 1960s provide tools for the cultivation of movement in dialog with existing habits. For a discussion of some of these techniques and their epistemological, ethical, and sociopolitical implications see Midgelow (2019).

References

  • Admoni H, Weng T, Hayes B, Scassellati B (2016) Robot nonverbal behavior improves task performance in difficult collaborations. 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 51–58

  • Anand D (2019) Colonization with Chinese characteristics: politics of (in) security in **njiang and Tibet. Central Asian Survey 38(1):129–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Best D (1980) Art and sport. J Aesthet Edu 14(2):69–80

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boal A, Cohen-Cruz J, Schutzman M (1990) Theatre of the oppressed workshops with women: an interview with Augusto Boal. Drama Rev 34(3):66–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borggreen G (2017) Staging lies: performativity in the human–robot theatre play I, Worker. In: Norskov M (ed) Social Robots. Routledge, New York, pp 139–154

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Burt R (2002) Alien bodies: representations of modernity, race and nation in early modern dance. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burt R (2006) Judson dance theater: Performative traces. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll N (1997) A philosophy of mass art. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang, IW (2014) Are dancers robots? A theoretical consideration of the body between human and robot in performance. 台灣舞蹈研究, 9(1), 107–121

  • Coeckelbergh M (2020) AI ethics. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Copeland R (1999) Cunningham, collage, and the computer. PAJ: J Perform Art 21(3):42–54

    Google Scholar 

  • Copeland R (2004) Merce cunningham: the modernizing of modern dance. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Croft C (2015) Dancers as diplomats: American choreography in cultural exchange. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cvejic B (2016) Choreographing problems: expressive concepts in contemporary dance and performance. Springer, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Cuan C, Berl E, LaViers A (2019) Time to compile: a performance installation as human-robot interaction study examining self-evaluation of perceived control. Paladyn, J Behav Robot 10(1):267–285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuan C (2021) Output: choreographed and reconfigured human and industrial robot bodies across artistic modalities. Front Robot AI 7:576790

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeFrantz T (2012) Unchecked popularity: neoliberal circulations of black social dance. In: Nielson L, Ybarra P (eds) Neoliberalism and global theatres. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 128–140

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Demers L (2016) The multiple bodies of a machine performer. In: Herath D, Kroos C (eds) Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis. Springer, New York, pp 273–306

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • De Spain K (2014) Landscape of the now: a topography of movement improvisation. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Elswit K (2009) Accessing unison in the age of its mechanical reproducibility. Art J 68(2):50–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher J (2013) Ballet and whiteness: will ballet forever be the kingdom of the pale? In: Shay A, Sellers-Young B (eds) The Oxford handbook of dance and ethnicity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 585–597

    Google Scholar 

  • Forsythe W (2011) Choreographic objects. In: Spier S (ed) William Forsythe and the practice of choreography: it starts from any point. Routledge, New York, pp 90–92

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster S (2010) Choreographing empathy: kinesthesia in performance. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gemeinboeck P, Saunders R (2018) Human-robot kinesthetics: mediating kinesthetic experience for designing affective non-humanlike social robots. 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 571–576

  • Goffman E (2021) The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Guizzo E (2019) By leaps and bounds: an exclusive look at how Boston dynamics is redefining robot agility. IEEE Spectr 56(12):34–39

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunkel D (2012) The machine question: critical perspectives on AI, robots, and ethics. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Herath D, Jochum E, Vlachos E (2017) An experimental study of embodied interaction and human perception of social presence for interactive robots in public settings. IEEE Trans Cogn Develop Sys 10(4):1096–1105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jochum E, Derks J (2019) Tonight we improvise! Real-time tracking for human-robot improvisational dance. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Movement and Computing, 1–11

  • Jochum E, Vlachos E, Christoffersen A, Nielsen S, Hameed, Tan Z (2016) Using theatre to study interaction with care robots. Int J Soc Robot 8(4):457–470

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kang M (2011) Sublime dreams of living machines: The automaton in the European imagination. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kowal R, Siegmund G, Martin R (eds) (2017) The Oxford handbook of dance and politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Kostelanetz R, Anderson J (eds) (1998) Merce Cunningham. Da Capo Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Langer S (1953) Feeling and form. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour B (2012) We have never been modern. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • LePage L (2021) The importance of realism, character, and genre: how theatre can support the creation of likeable sociable robots. Int J Soc Robot 13(6):1427–1441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin Y (2020) Choreographing Digital Performance in Twenty-First Century Taiwan. In: Mazur K, Wilcox E (eds) Corporeal politics: dancing east Asia. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp 301–316

    Google Scholar 

  • Margolis J (1977) The ontological peculiarity of works of art. J Aesthet Art Critic 36(1):45–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFee G (2011) The philosophical aesthetics of dance: identity, performance and understanding. Dance Books, Hampshire

    Google Scholar 

  • Midgelow VL (ed) (2019) The Oxford handbook of improvisation in dance. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullis E (2015) Performing with robots: embodiment, context and vulnerability relations. Int J Perform Arts Digit Media 11(1):42–53

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullis E (2021) Dance Improvisation as Experimental Inquiry. In: Bertinetto A, Ruta M (eds) The routledge handbook of philosophy and improvisation in the arts. Routledge, New York, pp 475–487

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mullis E (2022) Instruments of embodiment: costuming in contemporary dance. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ogawa K, Chikaraishi T, Yoshikawa Y, Nishiguchi S, Hirata O, Ishiguro H (2014) Designing robot behavior in conversations based on contemporary colloquial theatre theory. 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 168–173

  • Orr J (2009) Towards the development of emotional dancing humanoid robots. Int J Soc Robot 1(4):367–382

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Shea J (2007) At home in the world: Bharata Natyam on the global stage. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown

    Google Scholar 

  • Pakes A (2020) Choreography Invisible: the disappearing work of dance. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Paré Z (2015) The art of being together with robots: a conversation with professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. Int J Soc Robot 7(1):129–136

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peng H, Li J, Hu H, Zhou C, Ding Y (2018) Robotic choreography inspired by the method of human dance creation. Information 9(10):1–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poulton C (2014) From puppet to robot: technology and the human in Japanese theatre. In: Posner D, Bell J (eds) The Routledge companion to puppetry and material performance. Routledge, New York, pp 280–293

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière J (2010) Dissensus: on politics and aesthetics. Bloomsbury, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Redstone J (2017) Making sense of empathy with sociable robots: a new look at the “imaginative perception of emotion.” In: Norskov M (ed) Social robots: boundaries, potential, challenges. Routledge, New York, pp 19–38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Reilly K (2013) Theatre, performance, and analogue technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rodogno R (2017) Robots and the limits of morality. In: Norskov M (ed) Social robots: boundaries, potential, challenges Routledge. Routledge, New York, pp 39–55

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Salter C (2010) Entangled: technology and the transformation of performance. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schechner R (2003) Performance theory. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schiphorst T (2013) Merce Cunningham: making dances with the computer. In: Vaughan D (ed) Merce cunningham: creative elements. Routledge, New York, pp 79–98

    Google Scholar 

  • Shay A, Sellers-Young B (2003) Belly dance: orientalism—exoticism—self-exoticism. Dance Res J 35(1):13–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith G (2013) The dramaturgical legacy of Erving Goffman. In: Edgley C (ed) The drama of social Life: a dramaturgical handbook. Routledge, New York, pp 57–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahl B, Coeckelbergh M (2016) Ethics of healthcare robotics: towards responsible research and innovation. Robot Auton Syst 86:152–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stein J, Cimander P, Appel M (2022) Power-posing robots: the influence of a humanoid robot’s posture and size on its perceived dominance, competence, eeriness, and threat. Int J Soc Robot 14:1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanaka F, Movellan J, Fortenberry B, Aisaka, K (2006) Daily HRI evaluation at a classroom environment: reports from dance interaction experiments. Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCHI/SIGART conference on Human-robot interaction, 3–9

  • Thomas H (ed) (1993) Dance, gender and culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Verbeek PP (2021) What things do. Penn State University Press, University Park

    Google Scholar 

  • Willemse C, Van Erp J (2019) Social touch in human–robot interaction: robot-initiated touches can induce positive responses without extensive prior bonding. Int J Soc Robot 11(2):285–304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yeh E (2013) Taming tibet. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, USA

    Eric Mullis

Authors
  1. Eric Mullis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Mullis.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author has no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. This article was supported by a digital humanities research grant from Queens University of Charlotte.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mullis, E. How to dance, robot?. AI & Soc (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01819-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01819-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation