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When you鈥檙e already making music together, dance is a natural next step. At least that鈥檚 what two Adelphi faculty members decided when they created an interdisciplinary collaboration to produce the dance performance 鈥溾�� in November 2024 for Fall Dance Adelphi. Orion Duckstein, associate professor and chair of the Department of Dance, and Lee Stemkoski, professor and associate chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, created a way for dancers to produce music through their movements.

The professors collaborated on the design of a software program that analyzes live video of dancers鈥� movements and generates music. Based on their discussions, Stemkoski created a series of prototypes that Duckstein tested in the studio. Using an iterative design process, Stemkoski incorporated his colleague鈥檚 feedback and suggestions to continuously update and improve the software.

鈥淚t was really fun watching the dancers interact with material in a new way,鈥� Duckstein said. 鈥淭he dance is called, 鈥業t Happens This Way Once,鈥� and it鈥檚 really just like life. It鈥檚 the same and different every day, and the choices we make affect things in small and beautiful ways.鈥�

Adelphi dancers’ movements are analyzed by a software program that generates music.

Generative Music

The collaboration took off during a rehearsal for the Mad Professors Band, which Duckstein and Stemkoski are in with two other Adelphi faculty members.

鈥淚 had this idea kicking around for a long time and mentioned it to Lee after a band rehearsal,鈥� Duckstein said. 鈥淚 told him that I wasn鈥檛 sure how to set something up that would react the way I had in mind, and two days later Lee had worked something up. I was stunned at how fast.鈥�

Stemkoski explained that their inspiration was a mutual interest in Brian Eno, an experimental musician and visual artist who coined the term 鈥済enerative music.鈥�

鈥淓no created the iOS smartphone apps聽Bloom聽and聽Trope, where the user taps and swipes the screen to create a randomly generated musical composition, which we were both familiar with,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e tossed around some ideas about, instead, using the movement of dancers to generate music, and thus the concept was born.鈥�

Stemkoski said he and Duckstein implemented the music-generating program as a web app for ease of use. Anyone can open the app鈥檚 webpage in their browser.

鈥淚t uses the video feed from your camera and scans for clusters of pixels within a specified color range鈥攕hades of reds, blues, etcetera. As these clusters enter or exit different regions across the screen, different preselected tones are played,鈥� he said.

Duckstein said the tones were recorded and provided by composer Carson Moody, who also had great ideas for tones and how to adjust the musical dynamics for future versions of the software.

Choreographing in Real Time

While the students were excited to be part of the piece, knowing that their movements would impact the music, Duckstein said that starting the choreography without music was challenging.

鈥淚t was definitely work getting 12 individual students to think as a group聽and develop a dance in real time together,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut in both instances, it was rewarding to come out on top. Every dancer in the piece was聽seen, every dancer contributed and came to the stage alive and in the moment.鈥�

Duckstein added that it was also a challenge鈥攜et exhilarating鈥攖o let go, trusting the dancers to produce something interesting in the moment. 鈥淭he cast and I were really excited to see what was going to happen every night. In fact, that鈥檚 how we came up with the title of the piece,鈥� he said.

Potential for More Interaction

For Dr. Stemkoski, who is also the director of the聽麻豆直播 Innovation Center, this interdisciplinary collaboration is just one example of how to use a collaborative and innovative mindset to support the University at large.

鈥淭he mission of the Innovation Center is to inspire, support and showcase innovative and interdisciplinary activities across the University,鈥� he said.聽鈥淭his collaboration between dance and computer science is a perfect example of what we鈥檙e trying to accomplish. In fact, early versions of our music generation app were featured as the weekly tech exhibit in the Innovation Center. .鈥�

Duckstein and Stemkoski are already thinking of their next dance collaboration. 鈥淲hile the November dance performance was my first time collaborating with Lee, it鈥檚 sparking a whole bunch of other ideas,鈥� Duckstein said. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e going to come up with some bigger ideas for next time.鈥�

Stemkoski added, 鈥淚t would be really cool to also tie this in to dynamically adjusting the stage lighting or to project a dynamic art piece in the background, all driven by and synchronized with the movements of the dancers.鈥�