How will we live in outer space? | Tourism, Sex, and Culture in Zero G
Dances with Robots
Getting to space is an engineering problem. Living there is a design problem. In Episode 4 of Dances with Robots, host Ariane Michaud sets the rocketry aside and asks what an ordinary day off Earth might look like. Her guides are space architect Brent Sherwood and space journalist Maria Varmazis, who chart an industry in transition: from astronauts on research missions to paying tourists, and eventually to people who intend to stay. The conversation ranges from space hotels and microgravity spas (and yes, sex in zero G) to cooking, movement, beauty, and art. Underneath all of it is a harder...
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Which Way Is Down? | How The Body Adapts In Space
Dances with Robots
How do our bodies adapt to an environment they were never designed for? In Episode 3 of Dances with Robots, host Ariane Michaud takes up one of the hardest problems of living beyond Earth: what microgravity does to the human body. She talks with Janna Kaplan and Vivek Pandey Vimal, researchers at the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory at Brandeis, while CRCI student associate Rishika Kartik speaks with aspiring aerospace physician Gitika Gorthi about how people relearn to move, balance, and care for their bodies without a reliable sense of down. The conversation runs from the lab's...
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Who Is Space For? | Conquest, Care, and the Future Off-Earth
Dances with Robots
Who gets to imagine humanity's future beyond Earth, and who gets left out? In Episode 2 of Dances with Robots, host Ariane Michaud sits down with Nahum, artist and founder of the Kosmica Institute, and interdisciplinary artist Sage Ni'Ja Whitson to pose a question the space sector rarely asks of itself: not why we go, but who the going is for. Space has always had gatekeepers. From the agencies and billionaires who set the agenda to the cultural assumptions we pack along with the cargo, the story of leaving Earth has mostly been written by a very few. Engaging with Afrofuturism and speculative...
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Brave New Worlds | Why Should Dancers Go to Space?
Dances with Robots
What do dancers have to do with the future of space exploration? This season explores how movement research informs life in microgravity, how choreography structures astronaut training, and what happens when questions of access, capitalism, and imagination extend beyond Earth. If outer space is part of our shared future, who gets to shape it, who gets access, and what, if anything, can artists do about it? In the Season 2 premiere of Dances with Robots, host Ariane Michaud begins an eight-episode journey into the intersection of dance, embodiment, and outer space. Joined by Sydney Skybetter,...
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Season Two is About to Launch
Dances with Robots
We were taught that space belongs to astronauts, engineers, and billionaires. But if space is part of all our futures, then who gets to shape it should belong to all of us. So what, if anything, can dancers do about it? In Season Two of Dances with Robots, host Ariane Michaud follows that question through conversations with astronauts, scientists, engineers, architects, journalists, and artists, exploring what happens when dance and embodied knowledge enter the conversation about space, technology, and the future. Along the way, one thing becomes clear: space isn't only a technological...
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A Conversation with Sarah Bay-Cheng
Dances with Robots
Sydney Skybetter sits down with Dr. Sarah Bay-Cheng, a performance studies professor, scholar, and Dean at York University in Toronto, Canada. They discuss their shared expertise in deaning, puppetry, and the COVID moment. Read the transcript, and more in our archives at Like, subscribe, and review here: Hear more from Sydney and Sarah via ON TAP: A Theatre and Performance Studies Podcast: The Dances with Robots Team Host: Sydney Skybetter Co-Host & Executive Producer: Ariane Michaud Archivist and Web Designer: Kate Gow Podcasting Consultant: Megan Hall Accessibility...
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This One's for the Dancers
Dances with Robots
Sydney and Ariane showcase two groups of artists leading the way in combining technology with the performing arts. Sydney talks with choreographer Bill T. Jones, while Ariane chats with dancers Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson. See featured guests, read the transcript, and more in our archives at Like, subscribe, and review here: The Dances with Robots Team Host: Sydney Skybetter Co-Host & Executive Producer: Ariane Michaud Archivist and Web Designer: Kate Gow Podcasting Consultant: Megan Hall Accessibility Consultant: Laurel Lawson Music: Kamala Sankaram Audio Production...
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Code Switch: A Conversation with Raja Feather Kelly
Dances with Robots
Sydney Skybetter sits down with artist Raja Feather Kelly to talk about his work in live performance. The two consider airport security and the end of the world, and Raja shares how his personal experiences and creative work shape one another. About Raja: Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly is the artistic director of dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory (founded in 2009). In 2018 the feath3r theory merged with New Brooklyn Theatre. Raja has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the...
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Turning The Tables
Dances with Robots
Sydney Skybetter discusses some of the core theories that he teaches at Brown. Turns out, what works in the dance studio doesn’t always work in the real world. See featured guests, read the transcript, and more in our archives at Like, subscribe, and review here: Key Takeaways from Episode 9: 1.Artists can use their implication in institutions to effect change from within. 2.It is important to be conscious of the compromises and power dynamics involved in working with emerging technology. 3.Technology is not neutral and often reflects the biases and limitations of its creators. 4....
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Overclocking of The Human Computer
Dances with Robots
Sydney Skybetter sits down with performance historian Doug Eacho to discuss emergent technologies of the last century. They explore how sci-fi has influenced our expectations for the future of performance, and why these expectations almost never become reality. About Doug: Douglas Eacho is a performance historian and theater director. His current research project concerns artists and engineers who have sought to automate theatrical processes, from French surrealists, to lighting board designers, to contemporary makers of algorithmic dance. He explores the increasing integration between...
info_outlineSydney Skybetter sits down with performance historian Doug Eacho to discuss emergent technologies of the last century. They explore how sci-fi has influenced our expectations for the future of performance, and why these expectations almost never become reality.
About Doug:
Douglas Eacho is a performance historian and theater director. His current research project concerns artists and engineers who have sought to automate theatrical processes, from French surrealists, to lighting board designers, to contemporary makers of algorithmic dance. He explores the increasing integration between automaticity and theatricality on and off the stage, and the shifting ways technology performs amidst conditions of economic stagnation. Another research thread concerns the long history of statistical representation as it has intersected with naturalist and aleatory performance; this work informed his article “Serial Nostalgia: Rimini Protokoll’s 100% City and the Numbers We No Longer Are” (Theatre Research International, 2018). His reviews have been published in Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, and Theatre and Performance Design. Before his doctoral studies, his found-text performances were presented around New York City, including at the Invisible Dog, Judson Memorial Church, and the Center for Performance Research. “His Fear of a Lonely Planet,” a piece about tourism, was devised with Stanford University students in 2018.
Read the transcript, and find more resources in our archive: https://www.are.na/choreographicinterfaces/dwr-ep-8-overclocking-of-the-human-computer
Like, subscribe, and review here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dances-with-robots/id1715669152
What We Discuss with Doug (Timestamps):
0:00:04: Intro to Doug Eacho and his expertise in performance history & technology
0:00:29: Discussion on the portrayal of AI in the media
0:01:52: Exploring the intersection of performance & technology throughout history
0:04:17: Defining performance and technology in relation to art
0:07:38: Analyzing the connection between acting and the portrayal of robots
0:09:15: Discussion on the sexist trope in Blade Runner
0:11:05: Mention of a deleted Salome dance scene in Blade Runner
0:13:08: Interpretation of science fiction as art about the present
0:14:12: Conclusion on the nature of science fiction as predictions of the future
0:16:33: Balancing the future and the present as a parent
0:18:05: The misconception of AI appearing out of nowhere
0:19:40: The history of technology and overestimating its capabilities
0:22:23: The impact of technology on labor and jobs
0:23:55: The narrative of creating better worlds through technology
0:25:23: The promises of digital technology in a capitalist society
0:26:12: Artists creating critical work on technology and inequality
0:27:39: Algorithmic dance and the work of Liz Santoro and Pierre Gaudar
0:30:53: Overclocking the human computer
0:33:37: Illusion of power in using AI systems
0:34:06: Show credits & thanks
The Dances with Robots Team
Host: Sydney Skybetter
Co-Host & Executive Producer: Ariane Michaud
Archivist and Web Designer: Kate Gow
Podcasting Consultant: Megan Hall
Accessibility Consultant: Laurel Lawson
Music: Kamala Sankaram
Audio Production Consultant: Jim Moses
Assistant Editor: Andrew Zukoski
Student Associate: Rishika Kartik
About CRCI
The Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces (CRCI) explores the braid of choreography, computation and surveillance through an interdisciplinary lens. Find out more at www.choreographicinterfaces.org
Brown University's Department of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies' Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces thanks the Marshall Woods Lectureships Foundation of Fine Arts, the Brown Arts Institute, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for their generous support of this project.
The Brown Arts Institute and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies are part of the Perelman Arts District.