What happens when the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory teams up with the Pilobolus modern dance company?
A drone dance. Naturally.
Former MIT PhD candidate Wil Selby shared this video with us and explained the history of the project:
As a side project in graduate school, I assisted in choreographing and operating a quadrotor with a modern dance company which went on tour for about a year. Our work with Pilobolus began with initial proof of concept meetings and demonstration in September of 2010. This was followed by a choreography session involving myself, Daniel Soltero, Molly Gawler, Robby Barnett, Itamar Kubvoy, Mike Dostal, and Shane Mongar in November.
Final rehearsals were completed in December and our piece previewed at the Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston. Molly was then replaced by Matt Del Rosario due to Molly performing with Shadowland in Europe for the summer of 2011. After teaching Matt the choreography and making some slight tweaks, we premiered Seraph at the American Dance Festival in June 2011 at the Durham Performing Arts Center. The piece was then performed at the Joyce Theater during July and August of 2011.
We used Ascending Technologies Hummingbirds in the performance modified with LEDs, 3d printed mounts, and a custom wireless light board we developed to allow the tech crew to control the lights from their light board. We performed about 20 shows for a total of over 8,000 people.We actually won an award at the Robot Film Festival in NYC for the piece the following year.
Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com
Leave a Reply