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1. Dance-A-Bit: Integrating Dance with Teaching Algorithmic Thinking

   Lineberry, Litany; Lee, S.; Ghimire, A. (July 2020, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has been the foundation for many years for teaching critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The U.S. Department of Education website includes information about the importance of STEM in an increasingly complex world and the importance of all youth to have problem solving skills. Many researchers and practitioners propose moving from using the acronym STEM to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). The difference in STEM and STEAM is the inclusion of arts of any kind, aligning artistic creativity with STEM learning. Zimmerman and Sprung concluded that motivation and self-confidence in computing for females is increased when they can learn CS in the context of a content area, they are already comfortable with [1]. Recognizing this cross-disciplinary connection approach, Mississippi State University researchers in 2014 integrated a physical art component module that enabled girls to design robots using crafting material, with positive results. In 2019, the team piloted a 4-day camp that integrated learning dance moves with algorithmic thinking and computer programming. This paper will discuss the results of that camp that was offered in a very small rural town in a southern state in the United States, and how the arts component influenced the learners’ perception of computing. 

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2. Everybody Dance Now

   https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCV.2019.00603  

   Chan, Caroline; Ginosar, Shiry; Zhou, Tinghui; Efros, Alexei (October 2019, International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV))

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3. The Mechanics of Dance: Using Parametric Equations as Inspiration for Dance Choreography

   https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2021.2005858  

   Mendoza, Isabella; Will-Cole, Alexandria; Lamberson, Leslie (December 2021, Creativity Research Journal)

   Lissajous figures are parametric equations that deconstruct into equations of simple harmonic motion. They were a source of inspiration by artists and mathematicians alike, well before the digital age, due to their esthetic forms and simple equations that could be easily deconstructed. Here for the first time in literature, we present Lissajous pattern analysis in the context of modern dance movement, thereby expanding the physical understanding of dance and redefining the creative choreographic process. Through the implementation of wearable sensors, specifically wireless accelerometers, we have collected movement data from professional dancers to serve as an additional lens to visualize dance in a novel way and to analyze dance mechanics. The resulting Lissajous figures from the movement phrases were used to both inform and inspire creativity in the choreographic process of the Artistic Director of the Bowen McCauley Dance Company to create a new piece of work entitled Lissajous. 

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4. Robots and Dance: A Promising Young Alchemy

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-control-060923-100542  

   LaViers, Amy (November 2024, Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems)

   Research at the intersection of robots and dance promises to create vehicles for expression that enable new creative pursuits and allow robots to function better, especially in human-facing scenarios. Moving this research beyond fringe spectacle and establishing it as a serious, systematic field—a proper subdiscipline of both robotics and dance—will require answering a key question: How does dance advance the fundamentals of robotics, and vice versa? Focusing on the former, this article offers glimpses of this new field with examples of meaningful contributions to control, robotics, and autonomous systems, such as novel actuator designs, improved sensing systems, salient motion profiles for robots, reproducible experiment designs, and new theories of motion derived from the study of dance. It also poses two grand challenges for the emerging field of choreobotics: developing a robust symbolic system for representing bodily action and establishing rich, repeatable testing environments for human–robot interaction. 

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5. From water’s ephemeral dance, a new order emerges

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1820940116  

   Palmer, Jeremy C. (February 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)