Adobe and Museum of Dance Host: Preserving Dance's Cultural Heritage Through Immersive Works

The evening will be a lively panel discussion and mixer exploring how we can use immersive technologies like VR & AR to increase the fidelity of cultural artifacts like dance and performances. This is the first in a series of panels and workshops to fully explore this topic.

Dance artists, tech creatives and general public are encouraged to attend. FREE.

Video recording of the event is available below:

November 18, 2019 marked the Museum of Dance’s first Pop-Up event. We are grateful to all of our audience that came out to support! Sydney moved the audience with his thoughtful and witty insights into the future of technology and choreographic methods.

VIEW PROGRAM

Can we choreograph the future? Or is our future already being choreographed? Meet us at the intersection of movement, technology, and design. 

Museum of Dance presents an exclusive evening with cutting-edge choreographer and technology theorist, Sydney Skybetter.

Hailed as “one of the most influential people in dance today” (Dance Magazine), Skybetter is a sought after TEDx speaker, Brown University lecturer and researcher — studying the choreographics of human-computer interfaces and mixed reality systems. 

Join us as Skybetter shares his research, and asks the tough questions we face in our imminent technological future: 

• What does it mean to create spatially inclusive VR + AR technologies? 

• How do we develop choreographic gestures that all of us can use and our AI counterparts can understand?  

• What aspects of our choreography are already being digitized and analyzed? 

• Why is compassion essential to the future of our human-computing interface? 

Get ready to test your understanding of the virtual and real worlds at this unique one-night-only event!

Designed for Artists + Techies

This is the first in a series of Museum of Dance events designed to launch an expansive conversation between artists, dancers, creatives and techies in the Bay Area. 

Technologists, UX/UI designers, researchers, product managers, engineers and coders will explore gesture as an essential component of design. How can we empower users to participate in the choreography of our tech future? 

Artists & Dancers will gain a newfound agency and understanding of how their work can serve multiple technological applications outside of the performing arts sphere. 

SCHEDULE

Movement Experience | 5:30 - 6:30 PM

Join us as Skybetter brings spatial concepts off the screen and onto the dance floor. Explore the parallels between algorithmic computation, human interaction and movement — with a series of unique exercises designed for both techies and dancers alike. 

Expand your thinking. Make connections. Challenge your perspective. Play, test and iterate new ideas in a welcoming environment.

Opening Reception | 6:30 - 7:00 PM

Kick-off the evening with Museum of Dance! Enjoy light food and drinks on us, as you meet and  mingle with our Bay Area community.

Lecture + Q&A | 7:00 - 8:00 PM 

Get an inside look as Skybetter presents his ground-breaking research on the intersections of gesture, dance history, computer science and homeland security. With case studies on the Snowden leaks, historical theater design, deep fakes and dancing military robots, Skybetter will sketch a vision of how contemporary surveillance, artificial intelligence, and VR + AR technologies are interwoven with dance theory and the choreographic method.

Networking Reception | 8:00 - 9:00 PM 

Celebrate Museum of Dance’s premiere lecture series with a special networking event. Dive into hot topics and multi-disciplinary conversations across the fields of technology, dance and design. Share your insights and expertise with Bay Area professionals. Enjoy refreshments and make new connections in a fun atmosphere.

ABOUT

Sydney Skybetter is a choreographer. Hailed by Dance Magazine as “One of the most influential people in dance today,” his work has been performed at such venues as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow and The Joyce Theater. A sought-after speaker, he lectures on everything from dance history to cultural futurism, most recently at Harvard University, TEDx, and MIT. He is a Public Humanities Fellow and Lecturer at Brown University where he researches the choreographics of human-computer interfaces and mixed reality systems. He is the founder of the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces, which convenes ethnographers, anthropologists, speculative designers and performing artists to discuss the choreography of the Internet of Things. Learn More: skybetter.org