These Dancing Robots Are Not About Dance: waiving goodbye to 2020 and popular exploitations
As we close out this horrid year, I like many, am both seeking and surrounded by metaphors, memes, and phrases that summarize what we now know to be 2020. In this venture, I have come across 2 items that inspire this writing.
The first is not necessarily intended as a closure to 2020, though its timing coincides. It’s the recent blog post by Dr. Jessica Zeller titled, “Neither Tiny nor Pretty: On Pedagogy, Possibility, and Why I’m So Tired.” Sharing her exasperated response to the recently released show Tiny Pretty Things on Netflix, Zeller ties this latest show about ballet with a long line of movies and TV series claiming to reenact the dramas of the ballet world. To quote Zeller directly and summarize her piece (which I recommend reading), “Realistically, I doubt ballet dramas like these actually cause damage in real life ballet classes. More likely it’s the other way around. I’d like to think that most people watching are aware that these fictional accounts are overblown, but given the consistent portrayal of the ballet class as a locale for abuse, perhaps we should be concerned.” As would be expected, the dance community’s response to Zeller’s piece has largely been one of furious head nodding and appreciation for calling out the issues that most are too tired to take the time to write about…again.
The second item that pushed me to write is the holiday video by Boston Dynamics showing its array of robots dancing to, “Do You Love Me?” by The Contours. To summarize, it’s cute. It’s creepy…It’s a bit of both. The video involves humanoid, canine, and wheeled robots doing a cliché grab-bag of dance moves like the Running Man, The Twist, a bourré here, a développé there — and a few other things that make the robots look like they are dancing to entertain you, only they’re not. Rather they are playing out their role as well-devised demos showing off the company’s superiority in mobile robotics. The dance community’s response to this video has been mixed. Some people love it, some are downright creeped out, and some anxiously await popular opinion to surface because they’re not sure what to think. And, that is the problem. We generally don’t know what to do with this…and why is that?
This, my friends, is where I really begin the conversation and close out my 2020. What is going on with dance in computing, and how do we begin to peer underneath the hood of the black-boxed packages we receive, consume, investigate, and often avoid?
Since popular media inspired this post, I invoke the tone and general attitude of Lady Whistledown — the cornerstone of the recently released Netflix show Bridgerton produced by Shonda Rhimes, of which I may have already binged watched — don’t judge. Whistledown is the anonymous writer of all things scandalous in London’s Victorian high society, narrated by Julie Andrews. So, in the spirit of scandal, intrigue, and gossip, we are going to a Shondaland-like world for the next few paragraphs, all of which are steeped in my version of truth telling (but no spoilers).
And now, dear readers, off we go…
For those unfamiliar with our main attraction, Boston Dynamics (and to be fair, my familiarity is not deep), it is an engineering and design company that began as a spin-off of MIT and was recently acquired by Hyundai Motor Group in 2020. The company got its start by taking up government contracts in Naval training videos and robotics design for DARPA. The robots in this story are tested to withstand a lot. Imagine if you will, combat scenarios — the sorts of things that require a jostle or two. This is to say that while the canine robot dancing to celebrate the New Year is…a thing to behold, what you miss, dear readers, are videos like this that show company members kicking the robo-dog Spot to show that it cannot easily be knocked down. Or this compilation of robot stumbles, shoves, and kicks from other publicly released videos.
Now, returning to the dancing robot holiday video, this writer asks, what is dance doing here? The display of robots dancing is not really a celebration of delightful and capable robots, nor is it a celebration of dance. No dear readers. It is a fanning of feathers, a walk down the promenade, an intricate choreography of steps to show off the latest and greatest of what a company has to offer. Dance is the means by which a company celebrates being bought up for its reputable name and hefty dowry…I mean profitability. To restate, dance in this case is a celebration. However, the question I pose here is, a celebration of what and for whom? In many ways, this scenario of dancing robots is not far off from the social dances of Victorian balls, where dancing served both as a form of entertainment and as a mechanism by which high society managed social order and secured marriage partners. Thusly, this writer thinks dancing is what makes the Boston Dynamics video so…woefully disconcerting. We as the general public are to consume and share this video purely as a form of good-natured entertainment. Our actions thereby spin the capitalist gears and prime the mechanisms that elevate Boston Dynamics’ reputation and good standing to royalty status within tech’s high society.
So what are we dancers to do? Well, this writer is no techno-optimist, but she is not a techno-pessimist either. In fact, she is someone who has spent a great deal of time researching how these technologies are what designers make them to be. And this robot dance, well it is not really about dance. It is not really about us at all. It is about capitalizing on popular depictions of dance and exploiting its role within contemporary US society — returning to the words of Jessica Zeller, “It sells.”
Dancing robots surely do sell, and this writer thinks we (as dancing humans) know it. And here is the conundrum — when it comes to a popular show’s poor handling of dance, we quickly retort and applaud such feisty discussions. However, when a reputable tech research organization exploits dance in such a way, we are less likely to unify under a critical response. Why? Well, it’s complicated. Far more complicated than I am going to outline here, for this is a cathartic, even some might say tawdry, piece of writing in the tone of popular gossip, not the makings of a scholarly article. However, with that said, here are a few of the things this writer sees at play.
The first is novelty, pyrotechnics, and the overall “wow” factor. While the choreography of these dancing robots is generally “meh,” the fact that the robots dance is, well, quite spectacular. Watching robotic creatures deal with gravity and momentum is nothing short of amazing. However, what amazes (and perhaps scares) us more is the fact that we have no real idea how Boston Dynamics did it. Sure, we can make conjectures about the company’s computational and engineering approaches and perhaps even conduct enough research to make some bold statements, but the truth is, we are not in the room.* This, my gentle readers, takes me to my next point.
Fear and envy. Deep down, we want access to the things tech companies have (money, power, social currency). We want to marry above our status as it has been deemed by capitalist society — and there is a general sense of fear that if we critique the exploits of dance by tech companies, then we lose our chance. The fear of retaliation and denial is not unwarranted, as tech organizations have long been able to maintain control of who has access to their resources. Like royalty, tech industries hold onto their power and take down anyone who gets in their way. Google’s former AI ethicist Timnit Gebru is a recent example of how major tech companies deal with those who dare to jeopardize their methods and profits. Despite her careful work to put forth a coauthored paper with 128 citations, she was still “resignated” from Google for her work. So, instead of rallying behind critique, we quietly titter about our discomforts behind closed doors and in coded comments.
There is also the fear of what these companies are doing to culture and society. Speaking particularly to what this author sees within the United States — As more and more of our popular consciousness moves toward a techno-mediated, posthuman, hybrid sort of cyborg existence there is a general sense that we need to understand what is happening, not only to “stay relevant” (oh, how I hate that turn of phrase), but also to understand how these sociocultural shifts impact the people and practices we hold dear. In this, having a seat at the table has a certain sense of urgency, so that we might better understand what we perceive as the largely concerning impacts, though we won’t always name them as such.
With all this said, why is a discussion important now, and why would this writer spend her time writing a response as we transition into the new year? Well, it’s time to let go of the 2020 baggage.
As I have learned, the time we spend studying various computing and engineering systems (both technically and culturally) is also time spent learning what little regard they have for any movement practice, philosophy, and culture that dares fall outside what popular society calls “dance.” Returning to Zeller’s question, what do shows like Tiny Pretty Things do to dance? — My answer is, they keep us in our place. Not only by perpetuating stereotypes of dance as being catty, self-involved, and purely for entertainment, but also by ensuring popular understandings of dance are comprised namely of Euro-American concert and whitewashed social dance forms. These popular recounts of dance are what often shape the imaginary and resulting use of dance by tech researchers, not the practices as we critical dance artists, know them. Dancers are to be virtuosic bodies and corporeal displays. We are to be tokens of celebration and joy. We are to separate the knowledge cultivated through our practices from how we present ourselves in tech’s high society ballrooms. Above all, we are to be grateful for the opportunity to be in the room at all. These archetypal stories of dance are retold over and over and hold fast within computing and engineering fields, demonstrating that popular culture and science are for us, two sides of the same coin. The Boston Dynamics holiday video being only the latest example to grace our screens.
This means that even as we hold out for a seat at the tech table, there is a massive amount of gatekeeping that occurs before a seat is given. Do you want to have a rigorous discussion about transdisciplinary processes that actually lead to lasting methodological change? Not here. Do you want your tech collaborators to engage in research by moving and dancing? I don’t think so. Do you want to bring more to the table than being a ‘shiny, sexy, exotic, virtuosic’ thing that makes the research appear exciting? Good luck. Is your expertise in a dance practice that doesn’t divide roles into performer/choreographer? Probably asking too much. Do you want the cultural integrity of your dance form to be valued? Mmm…unlikely.
Now, I am quite aware that I am being pithy in this writing. Yes, dear readers, such accusations would not be unwarranted. I also know that there is more to this story than this author writes here. I myself have been in several rich, meaningful dance/computing collaborations that break stereotypes. But — if we are to be throwing all the old poppycock into the metaphoric 2020 dumpster fire, then I think it’s high time we acknowledge our own complacency in tech’s handling of dance. We must recognize that holding out for the opportunity to participate in the worlds of tech comes at a cost — one that disproportionately impacts those within our field and sieves most everything through the Euro-American concert dance filter. As someone who has worked across these fields for quite some time, I am tired. Like Zeller, I am over having to keep up with the ongoing barrage of tech projects claiming to engage dance but only doing so in the shallowest of ways.
However, for as exhausted as I am, I am equally stubborn — as , I know that I’m not alone. My tenacity is strengthened by others who also chip away at the structures perpetuating archetypes that do little for our field than provide empty promises of promotion and visibility. For, as current generations of dancers step into the social sphere, we usher in new waves of dance and movement artists who’ve studied computing and engineering and do so with an eye on critical inquiry. Artists who are changing the discourse of our fields. Lai Ohlsen, Maya Man, Catie Cuan, Varsha Iyengar, Ri Lindegren, LaJuné McMillian. Also, I think of the artists who’ve been holding space for these discussions to take place and ensuring that our dance scholarship includes critical reflection — Sydney Skybetter, Grisha Coleman, Harmony Bench, Kate Elswit, Kiri Miller, Amy LaViers, Benny Simon, Laura Karreman and my dear friends and collaborators Teoma Naccarato and John MacCallum. I also thank the artists who’ve worked hard to created legitimacy in these areas of inquiry — Thecla Schiphorst, Susan Kozel, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Dawn Stoppiello, Nora Zuniga Shaw, Michelle Ellsworth, and so many more.
So…here’s to 2021. We went into 2020 asking for 20/20 vision and what we got was a nasty dose of clarity. As my friend and colleague Hannah Andersen called it — a gift wrapped in a big, fat turd. We have A LOT of work to do. Continuing to do the critical self-reflexive work needed, and doing it with a bit of grace and humor is necessary. For if there is something to take away from 2020, my dear and humble reader, is that laughing through the tears is one way to not crumble under the weight of it all. Cheers to all of you and may we all have a new year better than the last.
- After this piece circulated, it was pointed out by Evan Ackerman that dancers were actually involved in the creation of the video. You can read about it in Ackerman’s piece, “How Boston Dynamics Taught its Robots to Dance” in IEEE Spectrum. (Note who is credited for teaching the robots to dance in the title.) Despite this, the article and project still tell us very little about what actually happened in the creation process and how dancers were involved. You can read more about these concerns written by myself and Amy LaViers here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BotJunkie/status/1347195892256944129?s=20 . Still Tired.
- Update 1/8/21: In response to the Twitter thread, Ackerman was able to confirm with Boston Dynamics that the choreographer with whom they collaborated is Monica Thomas, on Twitter as @onetruebonc. IEEE Spectrum is reaching out to Thomas to bring her into the conversation about the choreographic process directly.
