Two professors in dance and engineering have been awarded more than $600,000 in a grant from a science nonprofit, which will fund their continued project exploring how dance and AI may merge to help preserve culture, according to an Oct. 21 news release.
Assistant professor Sinclair Emoghene teaches in the Department of Theatre and Dance while assistant professor Lillian Chin teaches in the Department of Electrical and Chemical Engineering. The pair met during a faculty orientation two years ago and began to explore how their areas of expertise could merge.
“We just happened to sit next to each other,” Chin said. “It turns out that (Emoghene) has been really interested in understanding how technology can inform dance.”
The team, which involves undergraduate and graduate researchers, works to combine motion capture with sensor pads to analyze dance and its cultural origins. So far, they have recorded and processed 155 dance recordings from 33 countries and created an online platform to explore the organization of the dances themselves, according to the news release.
The grant from the Humanities and AI Virtual Institute at the nonprofit Schmidt Sciences will allow the team to develop their sensor technology through August 2029 and build onto their growing database of dance recordings from different countries and cultures, according to the news release.
Dancers are equipped with motion sensor pads, and as they flex and move, the pads collect data. The data is then used to train an AI model that relates the dance to its cultural origins. The model will help preserve traditions as knowledge of the dances’ history fades.
“Our work of documenting and codifying these dance movements helps preserve them as traditions change and the knowledge they carry disappears with them,” Emoghene said in the news release.
The research is supported by the Department of Arts and Technologies and the Lab for Immersive Media in the College of Fine Arts. The lab combines the motion sensor pads developed by Professor Chin and the lab’s motion capture technologies.
“The lab is about combining technologies, kind of fundamentally,” said Michael Baker, the departmental chair for Arts and Entertainment and founding director of the Lab for Immersive Media.
“It’s a partner within the college, sort of our home turf, and also with engineering, kind of a very different discipline,” Baker said. “It hits a lot of the right notes, and brings together folks and technologies that really unlock new possibilities.”
