Performance of Utam Moses (choreographer) and Eric Lindsay’s (composer) “The Space Between Us”, for computationally enhanced dancers and MAX/MSP. The costumes are embedded with LilyPad Ardino technology; One of the dancers’ (with the round skirt) costume combines LilyPad components and a XBee (wireless transmitter) together with pressure and flex sensors connected by conductive thread, which detects and transmits the movements of the dancer to the composer’s laptop, which are then used to generate and control sound within a MAX/MSP environment.

Instead of a dancer’s movements being a slave to the fixed constraints of a pre-composed piece of music, the wireless dance costume puts the power of live musical composition in the hands (body) of the dancer, who can explore and improvise new shapes and structures within an otherwise free musical environment.