Maida Withers Dance Construction Company Creates Kickstarter Campaign for 'MindFluctuations,' Neuro Headsets Used on Dancers to Create Visual Animation

The Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary season, has created a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the world premiere of MindFluctuations, an amazing night of dance and technological innovation.

Choreographed by Maida Withers, recipient of this year’s 29th annual Washington, D.C., Mayor’s Special Recognition Arts Award, MindFluctuations is the cornerstone of the 40th anniversary of MWDCCo, a group known for their extensive and bold integration of cutting-edge technology mixed with dance.

MindFluctuations is a unique work involving dancers wearing an Emotiv neuro headset, which uses their brainwaves to influence computer art. This creates a startling interactive experience combining dance, projected 3-D visual animation by computer artist Tania Fraga and live electronic music by composers Steve Hilmy and John Driscoll.

This work is a groundbreaking artwork demonstrating a multidisciplinary collaboration between dance and computer science intended to explore emotions and neural connections through movement. MindFluctuations makes innovative use of recent neuroscience technology. Dancers wear a headset that exploits the relationships between their emotive and expressive states to transform a rich, 3-D visual environment projected on stage.

The idea for this groundbreaking new project began in 2013 when Withers was visiting Fraga in Brazil. They gathered a group and began to explore the impact of dance movement on the headset and then built a framework for the collaborative work. Mindflucuations is being created through international collaborations in Brazil and Washington, D.C., combining 15 artists, a brain computer interface technician and a mathematics expert.

Residencies with dancers, computer artist, musicians and a sculptor continue in Washington, D.C.

The performance will take place in Washington, D.C.’s Lisner Auditorium March 19 at 8 p.m. To donate to the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company’s Kickstarter campaign, click here. For more information on how to purchase tickets to the show, click here.