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Dancing With A Smart Robot
Roland Piquepaille writes "Yes, this is possible, thanks to researchers at Tohoku University, reports Japan Today in a brief article [Warning: it takes a while for loading]. Equipped with a computer, sensors and batteries, it can move in any direction on four wheels and has memory for five steps necessary to dance the waltz. This sidebar contains a photograph of a student waltzing with the robot, MS DanceR (Mobile Smart Dance Robot), coming from another short story carried by Ananova."
I know you posted as Anonymous Coward, but are you David Flynn in real life?
Those who live in the Washington DC area and are part of the dance scene, will probably start to chuckle, which will lead to crying, then hysterical laughter will break out.
Your explanation is very mechanical and although this really isn't a good place to try to write about the subtle nuances of lead and follow technique, you wrote this like you're a robot. There's so much more to leading and following than the simple "if I push here, you go there". I personally have several portions of my dance vocabulary which are led quite similarly, but only at a certain point in the lead is the follow able to understand what it is I'm trying to do (or get her to do). This subtle change half way through, completely changes the result of what we're doing.
To be clear, I don't "ballroom", rather "Lindy Hop". We try to stay more to the original styles portrayed by the likes of Frankie Manning and Dean Collins for the cats, and Jewel MacGowan and Jean Veloz for the twirls. In the intensely geeky analysis of video/film clips of their dancing we've noticed subtle differences in their styles and motions which I really don't think a robot could, using present technology, understand quickly enough to follow at say 230 bpm in a "jam" (when the better dancers get out into the impromptu circle and show off their best stuff).
And what about style, counterbalance, flash'n'trash, etc? What I lead next depends largely on what the follow is doing as she comes out of whatever I just did. Learning over the years with world class instructors like Erik and Sylvia, Nathalie and Yuval, and Marcus and Bärbl, I've found there's so much more than just the "when the hand goes here you go there" to it. There's a synergy (oh crap...not that word) between the dancers. Part of what makes a good dancer is not that they lead or follow the moves/steps/figures perfectly, but that they exhibit good timing, teamwork, choreography, projection, and execution, all together in a package. I don't think a robot can teach that at this point in the evolution of technology.
What about the mistakes of the follow? Last night, I was dancing with a beginner dancer and found that although I was leading one thing, she was doing something completely different. It wasn't so much my lead as it was her anticipation. What I did next, wasn't what I had originally planned, but something new based on the follow's mistake. I couldn't teach that to someone if the robot was going to do exactly a certain move when certain movements were made.
Being an advanced dancer, I wouldn't want a literal follow. I want someone who is as perceptive to what's going on in the music as I am, and who is willing to take that occasional chance to back-lead. The best lesson I ever learned came from the incredible Hand Dancer BJ Jones. She explained that the lead's role was 90/10 as in leading 90% of the time, and following 10%. My current dance partners will take full advantage of that 10%.
If the developers of the robot are willing to part with it for a few days, I'd love to see how the technology works with a group of "real" dancers. Then, after we break it *GRIN*, let them go back to the drawing board and update the robot's software/hardware to handle us.
BTW, my nick on this forum comes from the two major styles of Lindy Hop. The "original" as done in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, appropriately called "Savoy", and the evolution from that style as done by Dean Collins as he travelled out west from NYC to Hollywood, also appropriately titled "Hollywood". "Hollywood" is also what you're more likely to see in the old movie clips excepting a few films like Hellzapoppin'. Frankie Manning is in that film as part of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, and Dean Collins is also in it, but not part of the group.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
I myself do some Lindy, but am mainly a Tango dancer.
One of the main problems beginners have is that they are generally learning by dancing with other beginners. If you can at least start dancing with a machine, you solve that problem completely.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I understand your point, but also, understanding that mistakes on either side can be a valuable teaching tool, makes this robot less attractive as a teaching tool.
In the classes I teach, I quietly encourage mistakes. I know they'll be made, but they're also a tool for teaching. Understanding where either you or your partner went wrong is extremely valuable in learning how to dance. Being able to identify which of you (or both in some cases) made the mistake, helps you to understand better the dynamic of the motions. Instead of having a perfect follow the entire time, I'd rather have someone who might make a mistake. This will help you to understand if your lead is lacking, or her follow needs work. Assuming the robot follow will always do the right thing is wrong. The subtle differences in the leads, even for beginners, can be the difference between two moves/steps/whatever-you-prefer-to-call-them.
In one case, a tuck turn, you could release the follow with your left hand and let her freely spin to re-acquire contact after the first spin. Or, you could, at the very last moment, reverse her direction to have her spin in the opposite direction. During the reverse, you could either let her continue the reversed spin, or stop her half way through to enter a tandem charleston. I use this example in every beginner series I teach, as a way to improve lead and follow skills. I think a robot would have a difficult time noting the subtle difference, and would likely have already committed to the tuck turn instead of allowing for the possibility of the reverse. Even if it had been programmed for it, I doubt the robot could understand and be able to react in time without pulling the lead's arm off.
As I've discovered in developing my own competition routines, there's glory in a great mistake.
For example, I've been working on a new (to me) trick which starts off looking and feeling like a "quickstop" (where the follow comes out of a whip/swingout and stops on the 7 count with a sassy crossover type of deep seated position) but, before she commits to the quickstop, I over-rotate her and tilt her body to her left to take her slightly off balance, keeping her from being able to stop, when I return my right arm to her shoulder blade and sort of swoop out of it.
This started as a mistake...I was off balance, and because the partner I was with at the time was incredibly sensitive to my movements, we ended up with a brand new cool looking flash'n'trash. I was just trying to keep her from falling on her ass and making the two of us looking foolish. Instead, we looked pretty cool and several people came up who had been watching and asked how we did it.
The answer was something along the lines of, "it's a move still in development but expect to see it in competition soon."
I can't believe I'm having an in-depth discussion of the dynamics of Lindy Hop on a /. forum. *GRIN*
Plant a tree in a developing country.
In swing, most of the lead is in the hand/arm.
In many ball room dances, the lead is more in the chest, and in many ways is simpler. The basic rule is stay in front of the leader's chest, and try to face him.
In Tango for example, the ideal would be to dance totally leading from the chest - it can even be done without actual contact relying on your eyes to tell you where your partner's chest is and which direction they are facing. This is of course an ideal, and very difficult. Often people will practice dancing with only one handed embrace.
While this robot is working off of contact, this contact can basically tell them the simpler directions of staying in from on the leader's chest and turn to face him.
P.S. The simplicity of the lead in Tango can be very deceptive. Not only does it leave certain moves (Embelishments) up to the follower, but it also creates complexity out of simplicity by giving more instructions - Binary is a "simple" language with only two letters, that achieves complexity by grouping those letters close together for each command.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The lead differences between Lindy and Tango are quite different. Whenever I try to Tango (very poor...I need some remedial instruction), my right arm feels like it's going to fall off the next morning. =-)
However, in Lindy, most of the movement portion of the lead comes from the center point of balance (CPB) near the diaphragm. The CPB for women is slightly lower. The lead shouldn't use his arm to "move" the follow. A similar concept to the squared shoulders is used. If the lead tries to move his partner with his arm, he will likely hurt her or himself.
Usually, once the motion is started, then the arm is used to make minor directional changes. Basically, the CPB or body is the sail, and the arm is the rudder. Although you CAN move a sailboat with the rudder, using the sail is a lot more efficient. And although you CAN steer the boat with the sail, using the rudder is a lot easier. The same applies to leading techniques.
I can completely appreciate the reference to binary. Leading a dance, any dance, is about taking the simple language of only a few letters, and communicating volumes of information in a very short amount of time. This is exactly why I tell my students they should keep the lead arm/hand very still. It's like static in your modem line. The more noise, the less signal, and the better the chance for lost packets (he said bringing the discussion back to something the average /.er could relate).
This use of the CPB becomes even more evident when you move into more "advanced" forms of Lindy like Collegiate Shag and one of my personal favorites, Balboa.
Plant a tree in a developing country.