Transference

“Stop Right Now (thank you very much) come and Stand By Me.
Everybody Clap Your Hands and Put On Your Dancing Shoes.
Shake Hands, and Dance With Me.”

Ever wondered how the lyrics in songs get you dancing?

Ever found yourself moving in sync with everyone around you?

Ever found yourself moving into pools of coloured light just to see how differently your clothes look?

Ever wanted to wear a robot? Transference is a live, repeatable performance event that lasts 1 hour, which explores the social science phenomena of Cultural Transference. How do a group of strangers form a shared identity? What are the influencers needed to get a group of strangers together, and creating a self led Ceilidh?

Using the social influencers of lyrics, rhythm and LED’s, Transference is a great event for up to 200 curious and playful participants (no movement experience necessary) and combines an openness to see what happens on the night with a brilliant soundtrack and fully reactive wearable LED bands.

Transference was created in 2016 as a collaborative project created by Guerilla Dance Project, Cambridge University, Exeter University and the Watershed. It has been funded through the Being There EPSRC research project.

This project examined how the combination of dance and technology in a crowd event could enhance the transfer of rhythms and emotions within crowds and lead to sustained well-being by increasing positive emotionality and reducing stress. It created a unique opportunity to understand the use of space, the transfer of movement, and emotions in large crowds, and the legacy of crowd events for the individual. In short, Transference created a “living lab” bringing together technology (robo-lets) and humans in public spaces.

Transference ran as a free, ticketed event, for up to 200 people. People arrive, are signed in and given an LED band. The bands are not lit. There is music playing and a bar where people can grab a drink. The room is colourfully lit. On the floor there is a set of vinyl stickers depicting certain shapes (a white circle, blue and red lines).

When the event starts, the music lyrics become more obvious and the LED bands turn on. From then on the lyrics and the colours of the LED combine with the vinyls on the floor to encourage elements of social interaction.

Some people watch and encourage from the sidelines, others follow people with the same colours, some make up their own dances. Over 45 minutes, though, everyone ends up in a self led ceilidh and dancing madly with people they’ve never met before.