Experiment series

The Experiment series is an unique collaborative project between dance platform Random Collision and a multidisciplinary research team from the University of Groningen. The project connects scientific research with the creative process of choreographers and dancers, by sharing perspectives and inspiring each other; resulting in dance performance and scientific experiment in one.

In an exciting collaboration of dancers, choreographers and an interdisciplinary team of scientists of the University of Groningen

The experience and role of the audience are the starting point of this joint research: ‘How are we influenced by what is happening on stage?’

Publications
Dance for Solidarity, Uniting Dancers and Audience Through Movement in Dansonderzoek in Nederland, (2015)

The Impact of Art: Exploring the Social-Psychological Pathways That Connect Audiences to Live Performances in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2019) | PDF – Final author’s version

Supported by Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Kunstraad Groningen, Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival

Experiment A

Experiment A | Noorderzon Festival 2013

The collaboration with the research team of the University of Groningen started with the pilot Experiment A, performed at Noorderzon Festival 2013. With the pilot we wanted to learn if it was possible to translate scientific theories on social behavior into dance performance and see if different types of group solidarity on stage would be reflected in the audience’s experience.

The team of artists and scientist created three short performances inspired by leading theories in Social Sciences on how groups are formed. The performances were based on improvisation and were collaboratively created and performed by the choreographers. Participants in the experiment would watch one of the performances (unknowing that there were 3 in total) and afterwards they had to fill out a questionnaire.

General director | Kirsten Krans
Choreographers & dancers | Jasmine Ellis, Ido Batash, Fernando Martins, Matan Zamir, Anna Asplind

Social Psychology | Tom Postmes, Ernestine Gordijn, Aafke van Mourik Broekman, Namke Koudenburg
Artificial Intelligence | Tjeerd Andringa

Experiment B

Experiment B | Noorderzon Festival 2014

Experiment B is the follow-up research after the successful pilot Experiment A.

How are we influenced by what is happening onstage? Experiment A showed people tend to relate more to a performance and the performers on stage when the performers show a form of solidarity towards each other. But do these different types of solidarity also affect the behavior of the audience after the performance in different ways?

In Experiment three choreographers each created a choreography inspired by the scientific theory. In the resulting three dance pieces only the choreography was different, all the other aspects (dancers, music, light design, costumes) were the same in all three performances.

As in Experiment A, the audience saw one of the three performances (not knowing there were actually three different ones) and after the performance they were asked to fill in questionnaires. However, an essential edition in Experiment B was the game ‘reconstruction’. After filling in the questionnaire the audience was directed to a adjoining room where they were ask to play this game in which they had to cooperate with each other to be able to complete the task. The question was:
Did the performance they watch influence the way they organized themselves playing the game?

General Director | Kirsten Krans
Choreographers | Jasmine Ellis, Ido Batash, Thomas Falk
Dancers | Anna Asplind, Rozemarijn de Neve, Evelyne Rossie, Miguel do Vale

Experiment B+

Experiment B+ | Moving Futures Festival 2014/2015

The dance performances have been previously performed at Noorderzon Festival this August in Groningen and will be shown in a different format at Moving Futures Festival. The audience will watch the performances, fills in short questionnaires and finally the researchers will lecture on the unique collaboration and on what science and dance can mean for each other in research. They will too cover the first results of the research of the performances at Noorderzon Festival.