Before I was a dancer, I was an artist.  When I was in art school, I took a trip to Hollywood to see the Art and Technology show.  Famous artists of the day like Claus Oldenburg and Andy Warhol teamed up with  tech companies like Hewlett Packard to create works of art that utilized the technology the companies had to offer.  It was a wonderful idea and a great show.

Now that I’m a dancer, I’m equally fascinated when dancers team up with technology to make creative use of media beyond the human body and music.  This is not a new concept, as evidenced by Gene Kelly’s partnership with Jerry the cartoon mouse in 1944’s Anchors Aweigh.  Here’s Jerry and Gene in their famous one time partnership:

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But what inspired me to write about it now is the Japanese troupe Enra. In a previous post, Can Inanimate Objects Dance? I showcased an artist who created dancing lights, but with out the human dancers.  In this brilliant work Enra uses animation to create collaboration between dancers and light.  It’s a flawless blending of two art forms, resulting in pure magic!

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If you want to know more about how this was done and see the video, check out this article in the Huffington Post.

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