MINDFLUCTUATIONS
DANCE, NEUROSCIENCE, VIRTUAL ART, LIVE MUSIC
A Java 3D application drives the participants within a metaphorical virtual reality journey
World Premiere / Lisner Auditorium
March 19, 2015
Washington, DC

 (2015)  March 19  Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC   MindFluctuations, a groundbreaking collaboration between dance, neuroscience, 3D projected computer art, and live electronic music, continues pioneering choreographer Maida Withers‘  lifelong fascination as an artist with the connection of the human body and mind to interactive and innovative technology. In MindFluctuations, Maida Withers Dance Construction Company performs full-bodied, intricate choreography with eleven spectacular virtual worlds created by Tania Fraga, computer artist, São Paulo, Brazil.

Interactive Technology

MindFluctuations involves an innovative process of artistic engagement with virtual interactive experimental artworks that visualize the interface between dancers’ emotive and expressive states through a neural interface that has emerged from neuroscience research. The choreographic process features Brain Controlled Interfaces (BCI) interacting with dancers and computer art. A neural headset (Emotiv), worn by the dancer, is used to digitize their emotional states that  interface with the processes within virtual 3D environments in the computer. These interactions exist by visually transmitting the impact of the brainwaves captured by the BCI helmet into the performance arena in real time and/or through the projection of stored stimuli to create a moving and immersive visual environment for the participating performers and audience.

MindFluctuations was created through residencies in São Paulo, Brazil, February 2014, and Washington, D.C,  March 2015. which enabled an international collaboration between Maida Withers and Tania Fraga, co-authors, Pedro Garcia, Java consultant programmer. Mauro Pichiliani, Brain Computer Interface technician and Donizetti Louro, mathematics consultant at the Institute of Mathematics and Art, São Paulo.

Pamspermia – Seeding the Universe –
Above Video (08:10):  process of capturing emotional states / computer interface /  projection on stage

Program Sequence:
Opening – The Company – Introductions
Part I  The Egg:  Giselle Ruzany, solo,Felicia Avalos, Sammi Rosenfeld
Part II  Blackness/Underworld:  Felicia Avalos, Ian Ceccarelli, Alicia Diaz, Matthew Thornton
Part III  Obsess:  Felicia Avalos, Anthony Gongora, Giselle Ruzany, Sammi Rosenfeld
Part IV  Turned Away:  Giselle Ruzany, Sammi Rosenfeld
Part V  Illusion – Is Anyone Out There?  Alicia Diaz; Anthony Gongora, Matthew Thornton
Part VI  Yield  – Twisted Minds: Felicia Avalos, Ian Ceccarelli, Anthony Gongora, Mary Heath,
Sammi Rosenfeld, Giselle Ruzany
Part VII  Offering:  Maida Withers
Part IIX  Monster Within:  Anthony Gongora
Part IX  Virtue Exposed:  Felicia Avalos with Anthony Gongora, Ian Ceccarelli, Sammi Rosenfeld
Part X  Whiteness/Transcendence:  Giselle Ruzany with Felicia Avalos, Ian Ceccarelli, Alicia Diaz, Mary Heath, Matthew Thornton
Part XI  Panspermia – Seeding the Universe:  The Company

Above – MindFluctuations  Excerpts (6:29)
Click to view Full-length Performance (1:22:33)

Above – Offering: Maida Withers (Excerpts 05:56)

Above – Monster Man: Anthony Gongora (Excerpts: 07:29)

Above – Wo/man: Giselle Ruzany, with Felecia Avalos, Sammi Rosenfeld (14:05)

John Driscoll Audio Link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/9rl6fbylfnvpa5f6jyhh7/ABs0P7QRmjfuY1BPxCNBUn0?rlkey=kwsd4ilpcz9i2ws5zl2vmj065&dl=0

Tania Fraga, Brazil, Neural Headset

3D  Cyber Worlds  below: created by Tania Fraga

Blackness – Underworld

Photo Above:  The Egg
Photo Above:  Offering
Photos Below:  Shaun Schroth
l

Below:
(2014) December 8 @ 6:00 pm Chain of Events Concert by Dance Construction Company at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC.   The one hour concert features four dances including a performance of Mind Fluctuations choreography with no interactive visuals/cyberworlds.  See choreography in photos below:


Ian Ceccarelli with Company

Anthony Gongora

Company

Giselle Ruzany

Matthew Thornton

Alicia Diaz

Company

MindFluctuations builds on MWDCCo’s previous path breaking interactive works with rotating loudspeakers, laser beams, wireless cameras, interactive cyber worlds, and video installations, always with original music created and performed live.

TANIA FRAGA

“Brain Computer Interface for Artworks” Statement by Tania Fraga
How to maximize expression, aesthetic and poetic qualities in order to create something meaningful using neuron data in artworks? First we need to understand which possibilities are available and their logistic difficulties to set up a framework to program a customized implementation for such endeavor. Therefore, we looked for a device complex enough to allow reliable data and simple enough to allow manipulation and be used for non-technical interactors. Second, and the most important feature of such artwork, in our opinion, is its aesthetic and poetic qualities. The chosen device after trying the commercial available ones was the Emotiv headset¹.

What does this device allow? It permits to read facial expressions, emotional states and a few cognitive data related to movements. After researching the results of such data we arrive at the conclusion that the most interesting for an artwork would be to use its affective suite. As artists we are interested in answering the former question asked above.

The second step was to find what in the digitalized data could allow expressive and poetic results without being too literal. The French thinker Edmund Couchot classified interaction as exogenous and endogenous. Exogenous being the literal question and answer paradigm we are used to have when working with computers; endogenous being the autonomous interaction among computer agents without any human control. As artists we were looking for a kind of symbiosis; the human acting in its total potential using the computer to expand their possibilities; the machine using these human emotions to create real time 3D virtual environments.

Therefore we have come up with the concept of exoendogenous interactivity. What is this? After the computer digitalizes the interactor emotional input data in an exogenous way this data is used by autonomous endogenous processes. What could be really meaningful in this process? We concluded that if the interactor’s emotions could interfere with the behavior of any autonomous agent we would be in the path for a kind of interesting human-machine symbiosis; thus the research for such has begun.

The first result we had of such symbiosis was the robot artwork Caracolomibile² built with an award received from the Brazilian Cultural Institute Itau, in 2010. Following this we have begun to develop a customized programed implementation using Java3D^TM API to create a set of virtual interactive world domains in which autonomous endogenous process use emotional interactor´s data to interfere with the behavior of agents implemented using growth, collision detection, fractal and flock algorithms. Last we are still in a research stage for the use of plants to extend its potential possibilities. This research is being done with the collaboration of artists from the Laboratory Nano from the Fine arts school at University of Rio de Janeiro.

The Brain computer interface (BCI) for the implementation was done with the collaboration of the software engineer Mario Pichiliani, the Java programmer Pedro Garcia, the mathematician Donizetti Louro and the support of the Institute of Mathematics and Art from São Paulo³. The choreographer Maida Withers considered the use of this implementation in performances would allow us to extract its most unfathomable potential. That is what MindFluctuations is about. That is what we are working to achieve now.

PHOTOS – MIND FLUCTUATION

Support for MindFluctuations

Computers for MindFluctuations have been generously donated by GW School of Engineering & Applied Science – SEAS Computing Facility.

“The Office of the President and George Washington University, President Steven Knapp, are proud to support MindFluctuations at the Lisner Auditorium and congratulate Maida Withers on this outstanding and groundbreaking production.”

MindFluctuations is made possible, in part, by the generosity of: contributors: Platinum Contributors ($1,000+): Office of the President and GW President Steven Knapp; Alison Beesley, Aimee Fullman, Greg Hunter, Stacy Palatt, Margy Pastor, Robert Rosenfeld, Carl and Toby Sloane, Nancy Tartt, Maida and Arlen Withers;  Gold Contributors ($500+): Teddie Wood; Silver Contributors ($250+): Michelle DeLeo, Margery Goldberg, Brian Kane, Artemis Kavaldjian, Kay Kendall, Alice Pottmyer, Zenith Community Arts Foundation; Bronze Contributors ($100+): Patty and Mike Cannon, Jacalyn Carley, Renee Carlson, Jennifer Caulk, Fran Chock, Josette Desfayes, Paul Hamblin, Dianne Hunt & Mike Koempl, Lydia Kellett, Pam & Homer Knudson, Glenn Marcus, Elvi Moore, Margaret Northrup, Esther Petrilli-Massey, Hazel and Ron Rigby, JoAnne Sellars, Sarah Slifer Swift, Kristin Williams, Eric Withers, Wendy Woodson, others.

What the press is saying

*At the center of the truly dynamic energy of the evening’s performance is Withers’ choreographic prowess.

*Withers has a gift for seamlessly transitioning the sections of the evening, with the help of the new world for each section transporting the audience into new terrain.

*Dancers compliment each other in performance quality, energy, and ability, sometimes in similar ways and other times juxtaposing one another.
Rick Westerkamp, DC Metro Theatre Arts

*dance performance as a high tech journey

*the 90-minute piece was high-concept and high-tech

* the juxtaposition of motion and stillness was elegant.

* the choreography evoked people ruing the modern urban world.

*music,,contributed an air of mysteriousness. Celia Wren, Washington Post

Forty years ago or so, Maida Withers was dancing in Washington. Shaping movement phrases seemed to be her thing then and it still is. I’d not heard of Withers before moving to town but locally she was already a presence as faculty at GWU’s dance department (from 1964), as an inquisitive choreographer, and as a statuesque and staunch performer on stage. In the years since, Withers has kept reminding us that the body is meant to move and not while time away being still. She has become our conscience whenever exercising seems too troublesome to bother with. Moreover, Withers has often traveled far from home, to18 different countries, where her example has prompted people to dance and to collaborate with dancers. Even now, she is unafraid to let herself be seen dancing in public. Withers’ brief solo – a scene not even four minutes long – was the crux of the 85 minutes long “MindFluctuations”. George Jackson, DanceView Times

Live streaming of MindFluctuations world premiere HowlRound Live Streaming

GW Today - Video Trailer

Video GW Today

Interview with Maida Withers - online John Moletress

Dance Professor Maida Withers: 40 Years ‘Out of the Box’ Julyssa Lopez

Interview with GW dancers involved with MindFluctuations Julyssa Lopez

Audience Comments on Facebook and email:
NEA: "I'm so happy I was able to experience MindFluctuations last Thursday. What an incredible accomplishment! I especially loved your solo. It was really interesting to see how each dancer embodied your movements. Such a talented cast. Well done, Maida! You will never cease to inspire me."

GW TrDA Faculty:
“Brava! Happy 40th.What tremendous work you've done with this anniversary performance. Loved the last piece and, probably because I'm stodgily theatrical, the piece with the dancer draped in parachute material as dress masking the dancers who "move" her onstage--and then she disappears something like the wicked witch of Oz.”

GW TrDa Faculty:
“Congratulations on the world premiere of Mindfluctuations and the celebration of 40 years of artistic collaboration…. The vibrancy of the dancing, the costume colors, lighting and the projected visuals were astounding and I truly enjoyed the movements I saw--brava! Well done!”

GW MA dance alumni:
To see you and your company dance Mindfluctuations was a sensory experience, complex, strong, graceful, and edgy. The dancers were compelling, I recognized your carving of space, the fluidity of small movements of the fingers that ripple through the body and draw the eye. The choreography evoked a powerful vision and imagination, what a body of work you've created in 40 years. It was a homecoming for me.

I was so sorry to miss seeing you. I wanted to reconnect with the person who changed my life and opening it to the power of dance, intimately connecting people to the essence of the human spirit.

GW MA dance alumni. Dance artist, producer:
BRAVO Maida Withers! The blending of visual vibrancy, dancing kinetic brilliancy and audio outer worldliness, was a journey to behold. Every moment filled and treated with extraordinary care and impeccable sensations. I am proud and happy to have known you and experience YOU and your CONSTRUCTIONS since 1971. Thank you for the gift.

GW MA dance alumni; current GW Professor
Congratulations on a striking visual show at Lisner; the energy throughout was palpable. It was a pleasure to see and hear the work.

GW adjunct professor and educator

I attended your concert last night and was THRILLED, delighted, and transfixed! It was brilliant! You managed to relate the brain to the microcosm, the macrocosm, and everything in between and beyond! Phenomenal!

Photographer, actress, writer – GW MA alumni, journalism
“The effect was a startling, conscious, emotive performance with unusual floor work and some allusion to past works ! Thank you,”

Dancer and educator – GW MA anthropology
“Congratulations on a stellar achievement !!! Several of us came together to witness your latest work, which was gorgeous and mesmerizing!! Thank you for a stunning show.”

Dance artist and educator:
Bravo!!! A big congratulations, Maida! Everything was just so polished; each elements was artistic and captivating. The most inspiring moment was when you revealed your face for the first time sitting in that chair - I just got chills, and heard an audible gasp from a breathless woman to my right. YOU WERE STUNNING! So much positive energy after the show, and so many people celebrating you tonight. Bravo, Bravo!!!
DC choreographer, teacher, dance artist:
“Maida Withers's premiered "Mind Fluctuations" tonight at Lisner. It was a beauty to behold with stunning performances by the dancers in a world of tilting surfaces amidst balls rolling, primal confrontations and aerial suspensions whilst dancers traded this fascinating brain wave sensing apparatus affecting the shapes that fluttered and morphed as we journeyed through two epic hours. Faces and objects dived and disappeared, a man transported to another life with the help of a kead figure who seemed for a time caught in a dismembering full head mask. A woman ballooned in atop her kin, deserts and valleys covered the air space, and alterations of bright to neon colored and patterned costumes gave way to twists and shifts of energy and focus. All the while an audio machine rotated with increasing speed. It was beautifully done-each moment a photograph or portal into Maida’s brilliant mind.”

NYC and DC choreographer and dancer
Bravo and congratulations on a beautiful, impressive, filled to the brim concert last night!
I loved your solo - so powerful, intense, mature in the absolute best sense.
A great pleasure to see you perform!
I loved the mix of the company, all gorgeous movers and lovely performers. Mathew and Alicia, luscious movers…So satisfying.
Your collaborators did amazing work, and somehow the density of the projections didn't overwhelm the dancing/choreography, even though there was SO much going on. I learned something from that.
I hope you had a nice bash celebrating 40 years - incredible!!

DC choreographer:
“Thanks Maida for your tour de force this evening. a wonderful gift to the audience!!”

Choreographer and dance specialist:
“It was a terrific show. Thank you so much. I feel your vision was realized. The dancers were amazing and your solo was beautiful. I loved the juxtaposition of the dance and visuals and music. Many beautiful images are in my imagination. Congratulations!!!”

Audience Email Comments

Photo Gallery - Rehearsal Julyssa Lopez