Event 3: The Laboratory of Embodied Intelligences

On Saturday, I attended a performance known as the Laboratory of Embodied Intelligences. In the introduction to the performance, Nina Waisman, one of the main choreographers of the piece, explained what the dancers were doing and what they were trying to convey.

Microbes are small, living microorganisms that we were said to have evolved from. In Waisman's piece, dancers would mimic and portray the ways in which these unicellular organisms travel, communicate, and interact. At first, the performance was confusing because I did not fully understand what the dancers were doing. However, the farther we got into the performance, the more I began to understand it. This performance was especially amazing because the dancers never broke character—even when people walked past and through their performances.

It consisted of them making fast and quick movements with abrupt stops to allow us to see how microbes transport themselves while other parts of the performance conveyed their movements and interactions with one another. The dancers looked as if their bones had liquefied and that there bodies were moving in accordance with the bodily fluids flowing through their bodies.

In the end of the performance, Nina taught us some of the movements and patterns that microbes exhibit and showed us how to transport ourselves like them too. Because microbes are made mostly of water, she related the way we should be feeling to allowing our bodies to "feel like honey."

This particular event was by favorite because it took something so complex and detailed—the characteristics and habits of a microbe—and made it into something beautiful and insightful. This was a true combination of art and science, such that Waisman used her artistic abilities to convey a more complicated message about living organisms that most people know very little about. I was impressed by the performance and would be excited to attend it again if I was given the opportunity to do so.