I just read the new National Geographic's article on astronauts and zero gravity. The detrimental physical effects aside, wouldn't choreographing, dancing, and lighting dance performed in zero g be interesting? How would everyone here approach it?

No more ouch pounches or lamb's wool for pointe shoes.<P>No more excuses for not pointing the feet in jumps.<P>No more blaming your partner for dropping you.<P>No more blaming the slippery floor.<P>No more floor.<P>Watching a tutu float might be interesing.<P>Watching the artistic director float away might be interesting too.<P>

In zero g the audience could completely surround the performing space - not just a thrust or round space, but a sphere. Without gravity the locations of audience and performer have a lot of other possibilities.<P>And accommodations might be necessary for audience participation should a viewer's little tether break. The audience member could float right into the performance!

That's a very interesting idea Priscilla - I never thought of the audience moving around too.<P>It could be really interactive between the performers and the audience.<P>We might need some sort of traffic control system -

I would have the audience in a surrounding situation, too, Priscilla. But the performing space would be enclosed in some manner where it would be the only part that was zero g. <P>I would guess that there could be a whole additional vocabulary added to the dance vocabulary we have now to describe some of the new moves that would be created. The dancers would be able to use all sides of the enclosure as "push-off" areas. I would think the law of physics as relative to dance movements would take on some new applications.

An upside down grand jete' - YES - I like that!!<P>A tour jete' that makes a complete circle - I like that even better!!<P>I would finally be able to do gargouillade!!

Enclosing the no gravity performance area with a force field would be best. Any regular material would wind up with foot- and faceprints all over it.<P>I can see the reviews now: "The performers had ably adapted Dance X for the Zero-G Stage, but by the end of the first half this reviewer could hardly see through the clear shell separating the dancers from the audience. Though this shell helps maintain the zero gravity environment, between the condensation from their breathing and all the footprints, I just couldn't see. That, and the harness holding me up above the sphere kept jabbing me in the rib."<P>It may be time for another dance science fiction story. Not that I have the time to write it or anything...

Good point, Priscilla. Need that force field! I think the choreography would be fascinating without usual points of the stage. Use of the performance space and composition would need to be considered. Lighting would have to encompass all dimensions. Kind of like 3d chess. Partnering, too, would be fun to choreograph and dance without the gravity to define, or limit what is being done.<P>Since you're fresh off a show, what are some of the things you would have fun with here, Priscilla, and others?

What would happen to all the years I put in learning to dance on pointe? <P>But then I could really do a truly stunning developpe' and really string it out, too. <P>And I could do entrechat vingt. <P>Costuming would be interesting - it could become truly part of the choreography - but also it would have to be designed not to float into the dancer's face, if that was not intended.<P>And even you modern dancers might have to put your hair in a bun.......<P>

what's the point of pointe? (LOL that came out cool) Other than seeing the shoes.<P>there would be nothing to tap on. i would miss tap.<P>we have always worn our hair in buns in modern!<P>

oh, but, for tap -- you could hang/bolt, say, 2x4s...and tap at them from all sides, a la those cool martial arts movies where they fight in all directions.<P>although i guess the tapping action might pose a problem...which would add a whole new dimension to things. i can see it now -- two people hanging onto each other over their heads while tapping (so they keep each other steady) parallel to "down"(assuming the audience is non-zero-g and there is, therefore, a down)....or en pointe, again with these funky alternate multi-planar floors. <P>now, if *that* isn't inspiration to change tracks and go into physics research...<P>-ari

The cool martial arts movies is right, Ari, where so much of the action takes place in the air as if the dancers are suspended in zero gravity.<P>I see lots of lateral movement and perhaps dancers launching each other. Being on pointe would have no meaning of course but given the weightlessness, the earthiness of modern dance wouldn't make sense either. So what you end with is some kind of hybrid artform that may bother on acrobatics.