Danceroom Spectroscopy and Hidden Fields
Four dancers in the foreground, in the background a starry sky with a bird-like structure.
Sat, January 04, 2014 – Mon, January 06, 2014, Performance

The multiple award winner dance performance »Hidden Fields« offers unique insights into the beauty of everyday movements. It illustrates the way in which the human being integrates with concealed energy fields and the invisible, atomic worlds − with the substance which surrounds and forms nature.

The project was produced through the unique collaboration of the most diverse disciplines: a scientist, visual artist, a computer scientist, composer and choreographer developed this gentle piece of interactive graphics and sound landscapes, which react in real-time according to how the dancers use their movements so as to form the invisible fields in which they are embedded: with the most modern methods of computer supported physics and computer technology of Danceroom Spectroscopy, »Hidden Fields« interprets the dancers as fields which generate their movements in gentle waves in an invisible sea of energy.

The project is both a next generation dance piece as well as an invitation to reflect on the evolution, derivation, and the interconnected dynamics of the natural world − from the microscopic to the cosmic.
 

About Danceroom

Although the scientists do not know what the nanoworld looks like, they are nevertheless obsessed with finding out about it. Danceroom Spectroscopy is the attempt to visualize this nanoworld. The molecular and atomic worlds can be literally wandered through and integrated with them. The project invites visitors to observe, play and even dance.

With cutting-edge 3D image processing, real-time computing and computer supported physics, Danceroom Spectroscopy transforms the visitor in real-time into an energy field, which, in turn, distorts the dynamics of the particles in a simulated nanoworld . The principle resembles the effect of a pebble stone thrown into water – with the difference that the “pebble stones” can observe the way in which complex waves and breakers are created when they emit sound and image so as to generate interactive graphics and sound waves.

Project team
  • Chemical Physicist: David Glowacki
  • Visual Artist: Phill Tew
  • Choreography: Laura Kriefman
  • Composition: Prof Joseph Hyde
  • Sonic Technologist: Dr. Thomas Mitchell
  • Dancers: Miyako Asano, Emma Harrie, Tomomi Kosano, & Lisa May Thomas Kostüm: Pheobe Babette
Sponsors
Supported by the University of Bristol, Arts Council England, University of the West of England, the Watershed (Bristol), the Pervasive Media Studio (Bristol), NVIDIA, and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council).