Choreo-Graph: Open Lab Summary, 9/23

This week at Kinetech Arts Open Lab, we hosted a special guest speaker to come talk about her work in AI and dance – the one and only Mariel Pettee.

Mariel Pettee is a physicist / artist / dancer / educator. She's currently a PhD candidate at Yale University. (Her website is here: https://mariel-pettee.github.io/ if you're curious!) She gave us a lovely overview of her research into choreographing with AI.

So, she described her "success metrics" for what a good AI choreography model would look like.

She showed us what happens when the AI is not trained enough: namely, sporadic movements that are actually impossible for humans to mimic and a seeming disregard for gravity and other forces.

And she showed us how she collects data to work with: using a body suit with 53 points in 3 dimensions.

And she even showed us how she used AI to dance with herself in quarantine!

An AI duet

“Irritation can also be generative.” - Kurt

In any case, we had a lovely time hosting Mariel and we're excited to see how her research with AI and dance choreography progress.

Beyond Imitation

Links for Further Investigation:

Mariel's website: https://mariel-pettee.github.io/
Pina - a movie about Pina Bausch, Mariel's inspiration.
William Forsythe Improvisation Technologies Video Series - aka Physics meets Dance inspiration
Laban Movement Analysis