AI in creating and archiving performance: dance, disability and robotics

Sarah Whatley

AI in creating and archiving performance: dance, disability and robotics

Sarah Whatley

Research Centre for Dance Research

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

This article shares the findings from research that brings together experts in dance, computing science and robotics with professional disabled dancers to explore the complexities of human-robot interaction in performance. Through a series of filmed dance improvisations, the research explores how the dancers’ expertise might reveal what ‘acceptable touch’ with the robots might mean. The article describes how a new project will draw on AI to create an archive of these dance/robot/machine interactions. Finally, it discusses how AI may also enable audiences and artists to discover, reinterpret and reactivate an existing dance archive to provide a model for how other dance and performance archives might be made more widely accessible in the future.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	45-54
Number of pages	9
Journal	Arti dello Spettacolo / Performing Arts
Volume	2025
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2025

Bibliographical note

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Under this licence, users are permitted to share, download, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and—where applicable—adapt or build upon the work, provided they comply with the conditions of the stated licence

Keywords

dance
archives
disability
robotics
prosthetics

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Whatley2025VoRFinal published version, 26.7 MBLicence: CC BY

https://www.artidellospettacolo-performingarts.com/2025-2/Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "AI in creating and archiving performance: dance, disability and robotics",

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N2 - This article shares the findings from research that brings together experts in dance, computing science and robotics with professional disabled dancers to explore the complexities of human-robot interaction in performance. Through a series of filmed dance improvisations, the research explores how the dancers’ expertise might reveal what ‘acceptable touch’ with the robots might mean. The article describes how a new project will draw on AI to create an archive of these dance/robot/machine interactions. Finally, it discusses how AI may also enable audiences and artists to discover, reinterpret and reactivate an existing dance archive to provide a model for how other dance and performance archives might be made more widely accessible in the future.

AB - This article shares the findings from research that brings together experts in dance, computing science and robotics with professional disabled dancers to explore the complexities of human-robot interaction in performance. Through a series of filmed dance improvisations, the research explores how the dancers’ expertise might reveal what ‘acceptable touch’ with the robots might mean. The article describes how a new project will draw on AI to create an archive of these dance/robot/machine interactions. Finally, it discusses how AI may also enable audiences and artists to discover, reinterpret and reactivate an existing dance archive to provide a model for how other dance and performance archives might be made more widely accessible in the future.

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KW - archives

KW - disability

KW - robotics

KW - prosthetics

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JO - Arti dello Spettacolo / Performing Arts

JF - Arti dello Spettacolo / Performing Arts

ER -

AI in creating and archiving performance: dance, disability and robotics

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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