Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Zero-Gravity Dance

Tags: entertainment, networking, video
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  • 9 comments
technoshaman

technoshaman

February 14 2016, 05:16:23 UTC 5 years ago

You did read Spider and Jeanne's "Stardance" trilogy, no?
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

February 14 2016, 05:29:44 UTC 5 years ago

Which is part of my love of ZG dance, the other part being farmemory. That rather clocks the band dancers; no real groundhog learns to Z-dance that well in a week.
siliconshaman

siliconshaman

February 14 2016, 13:03:58 UTC 5 years ago

The 'hostesses' were really very graceful!

I wonder what a whole troop of professional dancers would be like..
tomtac

tomtac

February 15 2016, 13:39:05 UTC 5 years ago

I think Jeane Robinson's work was not forgotten.

Here is why I think that: A zero-G music video has been a fantasy of mine for more than twenty years (I did post about it). So I've thought quite a bit of what would be possible. But ... the ideas in this video, and especially some of the 'hostesses' moves, go way way beyond what I cooked up.

I would not be at all surprised to find out that some of the people who did this have been preparing for this for years, and I am looking forward to watching the "Making of..." videos that are linked. I will be a quarter that this has been in the works a long time.

(And am very glad that OK Go's treadmill video wasn't just a one-off.)

my_partner_doug

my_partner_doug

February 15 2016, 16:08:58 UTC 5 years ago Edited:  February 15 2016, 16:10:49 UTC

There's no doubt at all in my mind that this video has been years in conceptualizing, even if not in active development. An earlier video, done in collaboration with Pilobolus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur-y7oOto14) used cameras under glass to simulate some zero-g effects. When Elizabeth and I saw Pilobolus perform this piece live on stage a few years ago, her first reaction was that Jeane Robinson's concepts were being replicated at the bottom of a gravity well. It just took the performers a while to find a way to do the same things without using the glass tables.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

February 15 2016, 17:54:49 UTC 5 years ago

Of course the field of Z-dance has been in evolution for decades. One of the first things that astronauts did, as soon as they had room to MOVE IN, was start playing with zero gravity. Push-ups became flips became the everyday acrobatics required to navigate in three dimensions. They had to learn a whole new way of locomotion. And how do humans learn? They play. They dance.

Stardance isn't revolutionary at heart. It's inevitable.

I've been watching it develop all along, and I love seeing each new iteration. Even the ones performed in a gravity well. Underwater dance is another precursor that goes back for decades.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

February 15 2016, 17:58:29 UTC 5 years ago

I noticed how far they went, and was greatly impressed. But the spacer in me also noticed the insanely dangerous things they did. Impressive as it was to see the release-and-stop effects on random objects, releasing projectiles -- and liquids! -- into zero gravity is a good way to get yourself killed.

But I guess anyone who flies on a Russian airplane already has a nonstandard risk assessment.
ng_moonmoth

Re: Yes...

ng_moonmoth

February 16 2016, 06:44:45 UTC 5 years ago

>> releasing projectiles -- and liquids! -- into zero gravity <<

Well, seriously fractional gravity, anyway. I noticed that a lot of the stuff seemed to settle on the floor. I'm willing to chalk that up to the difficulty of flying an accurate zero-g parabola, and enjoy the results.

But yeah, that's indeed a good way to get oneself killed. "Don't try this at home!"
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

February 16 2016, 06:50:10 UTC 5 years ago

Fractional enough gravity that unsecured objects can fly around in unpredictable ways, impacting humans and equipment in potentially detrimental manner.

Notice that some of the settling happened rather abruptly; I suspect vector changes in the flight were used mindfully to control the projectiles.