Boiling Mind

Mademoiselle Cinema × KMD “Boiling Mind”

In March 2020, an experimental dance performance was conducted by the dance company Mademoiselle Cinema and KMD. This involved sensors being attached to around 120 audience members to acquire data on heart rates and perspiration, with this data converted to a visual format and projected on the stage. Red images indicate states of tension, with blue showing relaxation. The psychological states of the audience, which were initially static, are revealed, and the music, lighting, and dance movements are adjusted in response to this. Naoko Ito, who was in charge of the stage direction and choreography for the performance, says that “This was an unprecedented experiment in which the dancers performed in response to information acquired by monitoring the hearts of the audience rather than those of the dancers.”

This project was led by Moe Sugawa, who was a KMD student at the time. “I am also a dancer, and my research concerned the use of technology to visualize what happens inside the body. I devised this performance in consultation with Professor Kouta Minamizawa as part of my Master’s thesis.”

There are various other examples of the fusion of technology and dance. Professor Minamizawa explains that, “Rather than direct communion of the senses between dancers and audience members, their mutual emotions are perceived in an altered form, with a relationship created as this information is fed back to the other party. That this cycle is shared in the space of the theater is the important concept.”

Ms. Sugawa was positioned between the dance group to which she belonged and the research group who would take charge of the technological aspects, acting as an intermediary to help combine the ideas of both sides into a single performance. Professor Kai Kunze was in charge of the technical aspects within the research group and indicates that the data to be extracted will change depending on the scene, with the story driven by the images produced. “I took part in this project because the idea of attuning the dancers and the audience members was congruent with my own interests and investigations as a researcher.” Many other KMD students cooperated in the visuals, lighting, music, and other aspects of the performance.

And then on to the actual performance. “The ad-lib sessions are created by the audience, the dancers, and the research team. This ‘conspiratorial relationship’ was a resounding success” says Ms. Ito, recalling her impressions as she surveyed the proceedings from side stage. It seems that Ms. Sugawa too was inspired, saying “The dancers trust towards the audience members deepened and their perspectives also changed. I would like to continue to explore the fusion of physical expression and technology.”

With this as the prompt a team engaged with expanding expressive domains using technology within Embodied Media was born, with enthusiastic students in fields such as architecture and music now coming together.

Chair of “Mademoisellse Cinema”
Naoko Ito

(This article was written in March 2021.)