News > December 3, 2003

By Jessica Pritchard

Life Editor

A fusion of computer science, art, mathematics and dance is coming to campus through a partnership of the computer science department and a local dance company with “Fibonacci and Phi.”

The program, which runs from Dec. 4 to Dec. 7, was initiated by the Alban Elved Dance Company and is in its second year.

“We’re hoping to bring together people with different backgrounds and at the same time raise awareness for both art and science,” Karola Luttringhaus, choreographer and artistic director of the company, said.

The program will integrate multimedia images and presentations with dances and performances by six dancers and one live musician from the company, Luttringhaus said.

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers found in the patterns of creation of various plants and other naturally occurring objects. Phi, according to a university press release, is known as the Golden Ratio and is associated with architecture and classic paintings.

Those attending will see everything from a dance among virtual 3-D snowflakes to dances with digital mannequins to digital movies made by university students.

Juniors Annie Lausier and Victoria Strokanova used multimedia programming devices such as Premier to create digital movies for the production. Senior James Lin helped Jennifer Burg, an associate professor of computer science and chair of the computer science department, make a digital fractal movie for the end of the performance.

Yue-Ling Wong, a lecturer in the computer science department with Burg, said the trees will look quite lifelike. In a fractal tree, she said, each branch from the very first line is set to generate a particular number of branches. The computer scientist sets the number of branches and cycles for the tree to determine the size. In addition, Wong said she could randomly change the lengths and rotate the branches to make them look more natural.

During the performance the last branches of the fractal tree will have leaves with words on them from a poem written by Wong and words submitted by the audience through handheld computers, Wong said. A fractal algorithm will randomly create phrases from the words, resulting in a type of digital poetry. As the leaves fall off the tree, Wong said audience members will see emerging poems of their own.

“The way the mind works, they will be seeing sequences of words and arranging them into unique poems of their own,” she said.

Wong listed other interesting aspects of the program and a snowflake dance, during which audience members are given 3-D glasses to wear. Some of the snowflakes used in the program are actual pictures of snowflakes taken with microscopes about 100 years old, Wong said.

“It will really look like they are dancing in the snow,” she said.

The company has put on numerous performances that require a Movement to MIDI converter allowing dancers to communicate with a cluster of parallel computers through dance.

“The tension between human-created and computer-generated beauty and thought-processes will be acted out as the performers respond to fractal images created in real-time by parallel computers,” Luttringhaus said.

The dancers influence the fractal images above them, then responding with more of their own movements. The giant screen will depict the visually perfect forms mathematically expressed by the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio, Phi. 

The blending of multimedia and graphical art with mathematics and dance is an important step for Winston-Salem and the university, Burg said.

“I would like Winston-Salem to be known as a place where science and the arts can come together,” she said. “It’s a way for us to be unique.”

The computer equipment, development and production of a show like “Fibonacci & Phi” is technologically complex and very expensive. Winston-Salem has the highest fine arts funding per capita in North Carolina, an important reason for the basing of the Alban Elved Dance Company here. The company is supported by grants from the North Carolina Arts Council and the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. 

After forming in 1997 in Berlin, Germany, the Alban Elved Dance Company moved to Winston-Salem in 1999, receiving several grants to expand its visual art shows. The German influence in this production is apparent in the innovative technology heavily blended with ultra-modern dancing.

Luttringhaus said “Fibonacci and Phi” is part of an annual production the company does entitled “Freespace Concept.” Each year the company works with a different university to integrate art and technology. Last year the group collaborated with Duke University. 

The project has been in progress for over a year, with the real work at the university beginning in October and November, Burg said. The dance company began choreographing its work this summer, Luttringhaus said.

Burg emphasized the number of people who had been involved from the university to make the dance company’s proposal into a reality for audience enjoyment.

Jonathan Christman, an associate professor of theatre, devoted countless hours to the lighting, she said. Tim Miller, a parallel computer systems administrator, was in charge of getting the Linux cluster of computers downtown ready to provide the production with a super-high-speed internet connection.

A final unique aspect of the program is the interaction of the audience through a project developed by Anne Bishop, director of research and development at Information Systems, and sophomore Amanda Sullivan.

“Audience members will be able to submit phrases, thoughts and words (about the show) to a server backstage,” Bishop said. “Then someone working behind the curtain will pick the quotes to appear onstage.”

“Fibonacci and Phi” can be seen at the Mainstage Theatre in Scales Fine Arts Center at 8 p.m. Dec. 4-6 and at 2 p.m. Dec. 7. Tickets are $5 for students and senior citizens, $10 for faculty and $15 for adults. For tickets call Ext. 5295.

Sam Marrero and Kyle Collins contributed to this article.