Dance and physics – laboratory

Welcome to our physical laboratory for choreography!

“Science is difficult cause it takes a lot of imagination. It’s hard to imagine all the crazy things that things really are like.”
Richard Feynman

What do dance and physics have in common?
Put on your physics glasses and let us welcome you to our physical laboratory for choreography!

Standard physics textbooks frequently fail to recognise that the same forces that act on a box act upon the human body. On the other hand, images drawn from physics can inspire kinesthetic imagination. For instance, imagining contact with the floor as an interaction between springs—which is the metaphor we use to explain Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion—will change the way the movement appears to the viewer and feels to the dancer.

Let’s do some research on gravity, force, motion, friction, momentum or turning and inquire into energy, space, and time. All of these are common both to the science of physics and to the art of choreography.

The project Dance and Physics, Fg = G [(m1m2)/r2] includes worksheets λ, W, F a E. As short movies, each of the films displays physical phenomena the authors used in the creation of the performance, Dance and Physics.  

In this choreographic laboratory, we invite you to discover known laws, equations and theories as well as new ones, hidden in the films, and to explore them in movement. 

This physical exploration will take participants through the creation of their own short choreographies that express physical phenomena and ideas inspired by short films. At the end we will bring all of it together in a brand new colourful and joyful RGB choreography!

The choreographers and dancers Barbora Látalová and Zden Brungot Svíteková will guide you through the workshop accompanied by the Popcorn song and its many variations.  

the laboratory is available in both in person and online formats 

You will need: 

– coloured papers RGB (1 red, 1 green, 1 blue)
– comfortable clothes to explore physical motions
– space to move in