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A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

zacksdancelab.com

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Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#31

Post by cryptonector »

lostemptations5 wrote: post #11

I don't know. This is ok if it's helpful, but reminds me of why I quit playing chess: the mystery was lost. As I got more into chess and with the advancement of chess computers and championships, I felt there was little creativity left to have fun with the game. So for dancing, it's literally meant to be "danced". Of course you can figure out all the combinations and so on, but being overly analytical about it remove…

When I was a dance beginner I wanted to be more analytic about it. Surely one could write it all down and visualize and think about it with rigor! But, no. There are things that just have to be learned the hard way on the floor rather than by memorizing notation/images from a book. Dancing cannot be learned only from analysis. Professional dancers might be able to learn new dances quickly from notation, but let's not kid ourselves: professionals would have to spend some time recreating a dance on the floor, they would bring a great deal of experience that makes that task easier, and they wouldn't end up recreating the original quite the way its long-ago practitioners would see as equal. Amateurs would need quite a bit more time and guidance to recreate a dance well from notation.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#32

Post by viraptor »

fzeindl wrote: post #28
viraptor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in martial arts you have even more stances, rotation around more axes and arrhythmic moves. I wonder how true this is. Specifically I think you could simplify the moves into steps with "who hits who" states. You could normalise out the rhythm, following the "everything's in 4/4 if you don't count like a nerd" idea. So you'd end up with just the key frames of either contacts/impact or change of the movement directio…

> Would martial arts really have even more variety here? It depends, but yes. Martial arts is not just boxing. Take the following choreography from one style of Pencak silat: https://youtu.be/8H0x1AKlpM4?si=QJLNffTUozn9kCf9

I'm experienced with both sides here. I think they're fairly comparable in moves/complexity if you include the non-partnered dances in general.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#33

Post by cryptonector »

nabla9 wrote: post #13

Musical and Mathematical Design of Square Dance Singing Calls Part 1 - Guy L. Steele Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_TqFOyYYmc Guy L. Steele Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_L._Steele_Jr .

Wow, that's pretty neat. I've not seen modern western square dancing and this calling business before. Certainly there is a language of moves/steps here that the dancers know well.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#34

Post by gradschool »

Choreology is an established discipline. There's no reason to re-invent it without improving on it. Some people might do it professionally. A big budget musical production typically will employ a choreologist to make notes during the rehearsals. Members of the company can ask for reminders about their parts, which the choreologist not only will have written down but will be a good enough dancer to demonstrate.

https://www.britannica.com/art/labanotation

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#35

Post by virtualritz »

cryptonector wrote: post #30
virtualritz wrote: post #6

This partly happened in tango in the 90's, when Gustavo Naveira, Chicho Frumboli and Fabian Salas came together to create a structural and kinesiologica base for something that previously existed more as "an intuition". For each basic configuration of leader and follower and their bodies they looked at all permutations. Then they constrained it first to the subset of those that are possible to do at all, kinesiologic…

As a one-time avid Tango dancer, while I believe all the motions/steps can (and have been) be sketched out, named, and notated and put to paper, that which can be written down is necessarily insufficient to make it easy for people who understand the syntax but not the dance to replicate the dance easily. Let alone beginners. There's a great deal of unspoken communication in the embrace, in the way the partners' cente…

> As a one-time avid Tango dancer, while I believe all the motions/steps can (and have been) be sketched out, named, and notated and put to paper, [...]

This is obviously untrue. For simple math reasons.

If you believe that, I suggest reading an intro to combinatorics.

Or just doing the math in your head for a combination of two steps. Leader does forward step towards follower's forward cross.

Just in one system (cross or parallel) and considering how deep the step is (outside, sacada, deep sacada/behind/in front) and where the leader steps (behind free foot, next to outside, next to inside, in the middle between legs, next to to standing foot inside, next to outside, in front), we can reasonably say we have 21 possibilities. Now multiply by system and that's 42. Now multiply by combinations of systems on one side and that's 84. This still makes a lot of simplifications but we're talking one step. Furthermore, if we mirror, we can't just assume the same observations apply, as tango has an open and closed side, etc. etc.

The endeavor is also not about capturing the essence of a dance but about exploring a motion space; structurally and kinesiologically.

Tango, specifically, will elude documenting on so many levels, otherwise, it's not even worth talking about.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#36

Post by knuckleheads »

Hello! Zack here, author of the post, thrilled to see people excited about this stuff. A friend submitted this to HN and I just realized it, sorry for not swinging by sooner. Always happy to discuss this further, the blog post wasn't quite done yet and there will be more to add later. Will respond to comments when I have time.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#38

Post by knuckleheads »

weinzierl wrote: post #7

This reminds me a bit of Siteswap notation for Juggling. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siteswap

I also enjoy juggling and have spent a lot of time try to reconcile siteswap notation into being somewhat useful for dancing. I haven't been able to make that much progress as compared to what I was able to show above, but in my heart I hope somebody figures it out someday. Maybe something to do with Cuban style arm knots, but who knows.

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#39

Post by knuckleheads »

fatcow wrote: post #4
vikhik wrote: post #2

I've often considered the same things (Salsa), and it's interesting to see where he's going with it!

https://furius.ca/salsa-book/ is a previous attempt!

Thank you for pointing this out! I had seen this page previously and had tried halfheartedly to find a copy of the original pdf at the time and given up. Just now I tried again though and was able to find one. Seems like a great guide, thanks a ton!

Re: A New Kind Of Dance Science (combinatorics of social dancing)

#40

Post by knuckleheads »

seer wrote: post #5
vikhik wrote: post #2

I've often considered the same things (Salsa), and it's interesting to see where he's going with it!

Hah same - especially in the beginning - all the moves looked like programming functions - inputs and outputs, state mutations etc. Thing is, the more I learned the more I started to use internally consistent vocabulary, so I no longer needed analogs, but would construct new moves from older simpler ones. I don’t think though that this article captures the complexity of of social dance, maybe that’s why its so univer…

A fun read on exits to a move is https://anthologen.com/2020/05/06/a-finite-state-dance-machi... . A different kind of dancing, but same type of thinking, about how to transition within the dance.
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