Dance/Art

We enjoy collaborating with choreographers, composers, dancers, musicians, visual artists, and others in the making of structured improvisational dance and performance as well as kinetic sculpture and public installation. Our projects have included experimenting with composition in dance using the “logic” of how groups move in nature and by design and exploring rhythmic connection between synchronously moving robots and audience members. We work with dancers in the studio, with hardware in the lab, and with mathematical equations that provide an elegant language for abstracting out the logic of group motion and interaction. This makes it possible to apply what we learn in our research on groups in nature and engineering to our creative work with artists. Likewise, we apply what we learn from our work with artists to our creative investigation and design of collective motion in nature and engineering. Here are highlights from three collaborative projects. Please contact us if you are interested to discuss and/or collaborate on a future project.

Naomi Leonard’s TEDx talk on Flock Logic:  How Groups Move in Nature, by Design, and on Stage.

Rhythm Bots

Pink Noise Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, May 23, 2022
Photo: Naomi Ehrich Leonard

There Might Be Others

New York Live Arts, March 17, 2016
Photo: Paula Lobo

Flock Logic

Lewis-Sigler Institute, December 5, 2010
Photo: Evelyn Tu