On Tuesday January 17th I attended the lecture “Dancing as an expression of choreographic thought of physical intelligence” by Scott Delahunta at CosmoCaixa. The presentation was part of the cycle “The brain invades the city”.
Schott Delahunta is trained as a dancer,but his research is not just focused on the artistic sphere but in the area of processes and experiences. His interest is about the mind (not the brain) of dancers and choreographers. He is interested in how they eventually create their pieces and other things.
Delahunta says that the relationship between dance and science goes beyond the motor system. Dance and science also are related through Cognitive Psychology.
For a long time, it was believed that knowledge was only created through words and language. However, Delahunta has discovered that there are other key factors in this process of knowledge creation. In order to reach his own conclusions he has worked with or studied choreographers and companies from different countries such as Malpelo, Wayne McGregor o Trisha Brown.
 Ideas in movement change and evolve constantly. Dance is the expression of emotions and thoughts. Perhaps there is no clear-cut distinction between thinking and doing. Delahunta remarks that the doing also has thinking. He speaks of “choreographic thinking” and suggests that there is an emergence of a collective mind when a group of dances are performing a set piece or an improvised one. In a piece where several dances take part, the relationships between them are very important. This suggests the idea of a collective mind. It is in the connections between the dancers that the mind of the piece is located.
Delahunta commented that the questions that dancers ask themselves are very similar to the questions of the scientists ask. For that reason, he believes that both worlds are not so far apart.
He got interested in the different ways in which dancers annotated dance. He asked himself how dancers’ notebooks and each of their pages could become for a dancer an extension of his or her own body. The annotations that dancers create are related to a type of knowledge that is inside the body itself. In fact, dancers have to externalize and represent a great deal of knowledge that is in their inside.
 Delahunta and his collaborators have carried out projects related to the previous topics and also published several scientific articles about these issues. For example:
- Choreography and cognition (AtaXia 2004)
- Chroreographic Thinking Tools: The goal of this project was to augment the creative process. The idea was to study the stimuli for the minds of the dances in order to help them understand their own creative processes and increase their imagination.
- The choreographer language agent
- Improvisation technologies: a tool for the analitycal dance eye 1994/1999. (William Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies. A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye. CD-ROM and booklet with a text by Roslyn Sulcas. Stuttgart, 1999 – ISBN 3-7757-0850-2)
- Synchronous objects for one flat thing beta, reproduced by William Forsythe
Delahunta explained several creativity techniques used by different choreographers. He also remarked that in contemporary dance, choreographers no longer mark the steps for dancers but, instead, design processes of creation and it is the dancers themselves who actually compose the piece. In this way, everything is richer and dancers find the whole experience more fulfilling.
Some tasks to stimulate creativity:
- Visualize images
- Remember melodies
- To try to translate acoustic images into visual images.
- The 27 points of a cube (Trisha Brown Locus) –> 27 point –> 27 letters => words –> emotions –> movement. (It goes way beyond the aesthetic form. With this technique one creates new spaces)
Delahunta pointed to reference sources were a wealth of creative techniques can be found:
To know more you can consult:
You will find other lectures and presentations by Scott Delahunta on Youtube.
 L_ENTES is an artistic project. It is a contemporary dance performance ideated and directed by Iris Heitzinger and Natalia Jiménez. La Mandarina de Newton S.L. works as a scientific advisor.
The project is based on the meeting of four different disciplines: dance and movement as a global language of the body, science and mathematics with an special approach to the concepts of classical mechanics, optics and relativistic physics, lighting as an art and sound.
Our main axis is our investigation on human perception. In the foreground of the meeting with the public, we put the body in motion.
In all processes of creation in performing arts the concepts of space, time, light, sound and movement are intrinsic. They usually serve as vehicles of expression. This time however, we have directed our focus towards these items consciously. They have become the main protagonists.
These four concepts are present not only in performing arts, but in our day to day. They help us to create our perception of the environment. We came out with the following questions: What do we perceive? How do we perceive? Where is the line between reality and illusion? What can cause reactions in the viewer when he/she is invited to explore the boundary between the natural and the artificial, nature and art?
 We offer a new experience to the public. We draw the attention of the spectator to his or her current experience. We offer the possibility to perceive a known environment with a new look and we create a link between art and a community space, habitat.
It is often more artifice than nature around us. That is why we believe that the latest concept is less experienced. So we want to offer a new experience that extends the natural perception through art to the public.
 The Simons Foundation and the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath), which will open its doors next year, have already begun to offer some very interesting math activities. I absolutely agree with their strategy: they have already started to meet their future audience and they are fascinating them with events. They already sell mathematical books on their website, long before the museum actually opens.
 Last month, MoMath drew about 350 people to Baruch College to “The Geometry of Origami, from Science to Sculpture“, a workshop carried out by the famous MIT Professor, Erik Demaine. This was the first meeting in a series called Math Encounters. These activities are designed to illustrate how math is woven into the fabric of everyday life.
I was fortunate to attend this meeting and the following one, which was held last April 7th: “Symmetry, Art & Illusion: Amazing Symmetrical Patterns in Music, Drawing and Dance. ” In this second occasion we enjoyed mathematics from artist Scott Kim.
Thanks to the first meeting I participated in the co-construction of a large-scale origami sculpture and I rushed afterwards to put “Between the folds“ on my list of urgent movies to see . Today I can say that this movie is highly advisable. During the second meeting I was immersed into a world of patterns, shapes and sensations…
 The second meeting began with a mathematically inspired digital dance video (not because it was done by a computer, but because it was danced with the fingers, in latin ‘digit’) by Vi-Hart.
I dance since I was 3 years old and at the age of 18 I decided to study a Physics degree. I’ve always liked the idea of combining what I love most. That means dancing science or doing science while dancing… The la Mandarina de Newton‘s line of work “Enjoying Curiosity“, in fact, wants to make real this combination. When I saw this math and digital choreography, I was speechless. I must say, I felt excited…
 After that, Scott Kim talked, brought us closer to, explained to us and showed us how to create an ambigram… But as Mr. Kim said:
“Ambigrams are so purely visual. You can explain them in words, but it’s like describing a dance”
So, again, as in the case of the mathematical-digital choreography, it is not easy to convey into words how Mr. Kim made mathematics something visual, auditory and tactile, but he did it. Translation, rotation, reflection and scaling were shown with words, graphics, M.C. Escher paintings and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, among other things.
 As he wanted to convey to us not only the mechanics of mathematics, but also the literature of mathematics, Scott Kim made the ambigram “Teach/Learn” the best summary of the day. It was a real pleasure!
Thanks and congratulations to Erik Demaine, Vi-Hart, Scott Kim and the MoMath team!
 The show Katastrophê played by the theatre company Sr. Serrano, that has been produced with the scientific advise of la Mandarina de Newton, has already enjoyed two residences. One in Avignon and a second one in Turin.
Finally, it was released in Perpignan and it was a big success. It has also been presented in Montpellier.
Soon, you will be able to see it at the Circus Fair of Catalonia, Trapezi, in Reus and during the first two weeks of June, at the Sala Beckett.
 The work in progress of the show Katastrophê that it has been designed, created and directed by the company Sr. Serrano, scientifically assessed by la Mandarina de Newton, and that was presented with great success at the prestigious International Theatre Festival of Avignon, now opens on 9 and 10 October at 20h and 20: 45h, respectively, at the Sala Beckett in Barcelona. This work offers a different and original view on the history of civilization, on natural and caused disasters and on chemical reactions.
 The Association Senyor Serrano was invited by CNES (Centre National des Écritures du Spectacle) to participate in a artist residence at the Avignon Festival. Work in process Katastrophê, the new project of the Association which has the scientific advice of la Mandarina de Newton S.L., was showed the 21st and the 23rd of July in the Chartreuse of Avignon.
In this first form of Katastrophê, actors carried out a series of experiments representing a tour of various disasters experienced by mankind. You will recognize the advice of la Mandarina de Newton in the foam generated with potassium iodide and hydrogen peroxide, in the super-absorbent polymer used in part 2 and in the acetone as a solvent, among others experiments.
You can see videos of the show into three parts:
 Senyor Serrano is a creative heterogeneous theater group led by Alex Serrano. They work on the creation of projects based on experimentation, games and research for new languages. Sr. Serrano’s Association has been invited by CNES (Centre National des Écritures du Spectacle) to participate in an artist residence at the Avignon Theatre Festival. The work in process of Katastrophê will be displayed on Chartreuse Avignon on the 21st and 23rd of July 2010. La Mandarina de Newton has collaborated on the creation of Katastrophê with its scientific advice and chemical experiments.
 Irene Lapuente obtained a degree in Physics from the University of Barcelona (2002). She completed postgraduate studies in Science Communication, Divulgation and Pedagogy at Pompeu Fabra University (2003 and 2008) and at the Technical University of Catalonia, UPC (2003). She also trained and practiced in museography both at the University of Barcelona and at CosmoCaixa, Barcelona’s Science Museum, a Center that is an Excite Excellence Award Winner.
Since 2003 she has been working in Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Communication and Divulgation. She actively experiments and combines with different formats ranging from games, theatre and familiy activities to the creation and dynamization of online plaforms and communities.
She has worked in or for scientific and technological centers and companies such as CosmoCaixa Barcelona, Citilab or Invenio learn.by.doing. At Cosmocaixa she was in charge of science activities design and implementaton. At Citilab she has been developing activities for kids and defining the exhibtion programme. For Invenio she developed a set of science and technology divulgation workshops for kids and primary teachers that has been successfully run in more than 200 Catalan schools.
She took the responsibility of Science Communicator at the Software Department LSI from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and implemented the first communication strategy for that deparment as well as its first online strategy. It was recognized as an outstanding initiative by the Catalan Agency for Research and Innovation. She got the the position of Head of Science Communication and Divulgation at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology (ICP) in 2009.
She has published articles in +LSI, Informacions and DossierTecnològic and participated in several Web2.0 initiatives ranging from podcasts (Mossega La Poma) to fora. She also runs a popular blog in science divulgation: La Mandarina de Newton.
On the other hand, she has significant experience as a secondary teacher in areas such as mathematics, science and technology. She has experience as teacher and monitor for summer schools. Previously she also worked for one year as a Physics Technician in the Rahtmore Grammar School, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
She is accomplished contemporary dancer, having participated in several performances in both Catalonia and Northern Ireland in the last ten years. She developed several coreographies while at Cosmocaixa around Physics concepts and she keeps a keen interest in devising new formats for science communication and divulgation at the intersection between art, dance and science.
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