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Huang Yi

My Dance Partner Is Not A Human

My Dance Partner Is Not A Human

Source:Huang Yi

Once a boy who admired the robot-cat Doraemon, Huang Yi is now a digital choreographer who duets with his own-designed robot, and the first Taiwanese to stand on the stage of TED’s annual conference in 2017. With reason and passion, Huang spins intricate human feelings into emotionless robots, pushing the realm of art to new extremes.

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My Dance Partner Is Not A Human

By Yenlin Cheng
web only

From the dark emerged the silhouette of a dancer gazing at his dance partner, a robotic arm named KUKA. The melody of a Cello streamed through. The robot smoothly swang to the front, to the back, touched the palm of the dancer, and the face. Lights turned down. The dancer collapsed to the ground. KUKA gave him a hand with a sad laser gaze.

This is HUANG YI & KUKA, a futuristic work of art that intertwines modern dance and visual arts with the realm of robotics, which has brought a 34-year-old Taiwanese choreographer to the spotlight of the world of dancing, and to the stage of TED’s annual conference, where he performed for the opening of The Future You, TED in April 2017.

As Taiwan’s only choreographer whose work has entered ISPA’s (International Society for the Performing Arts) list of top 10 performing art works for two consecutive years, Huang Yi was also named by Dance Magazine as one of the “25 to watch,” the second elected Taiwanese dancer after Fang-Yi Sheu.

A young man from Chiayi, Taiwan, takes the hand of his robot partner to dance themselves to the center of the world.

HUANG YI & KUKA 2015 - Trailer from Huang Yi on Vimeo.

In a rain-pouring afternoon at his metal-sheeted studio, we interviewed Huang, who was wearing a plain black T-shirt, along with his teammates Lin Jou-wen (林柔雯) and Hu Chien (胡鑑).

Huang, acclaimed for perfection in details and precision, held up his notes and conscientiously answered each question. However, when we picked up the topic of the Japanese cartoon Doreamon, a childlike smile flashed across his poised face. The Anywhere Door and the Time Machine were his favorite gadgets. He saw Doreamon as an idol who can fix any problem.

I Believe in Robots.

Like Doreamon, a cartoon about a robot-cat who came from the 22nd century, many movies, and science fictions have long pictured future life with robots as personal everyday assistants. Having a robot as a dance partner was like living out the future in the present.

“I never worried. I am confident with KUKA,” said Huang, as if talking about a trust-worthy, heartfelt friend of his.

Once in a show, KUKA couldn’t be turned on until they ran out of rehearsal time. Though it was restored back to state, it was Huang who suddenly got lost when he mounted the stage. “For a moment, I thought I have messed everything up. But KUKA still remembered, and I began to follow it,” said Huang, as he recalled in amazement.

At that moment, it was as if robots, which used to be thought of as imitators of human, suddenly became living creatures of their own. The one who instilled the soul inside the robot, was Huang.

Image: Huang Yi Studio +

After graduating from Dance School of Chiayi Junior High School, Huang made it up to Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) to study a 7-year curriculum in dancing, and finally got his master degree. Born to dancer parents who did international standard ballroom dancing, Huang started dancing from a very early age. What made him different, was that the little dancer had a whole shelf of popular science magazines.

When he was in fourth grade, his parents experienced a massive investment failure. The whole family had to move from a mansion to a 140 square feet shack. Both his parents worked three part-time jobs to make ends meet, but still they managed to buy a computer for Huang.

With his computer, Huang taught himself website and animation designs, to support his family by taking on piece-work jobs. After he moved to Taipei, he not only danced, but also took courses in theater design, music, and digital art. He even started the “Cross-Field Art Creation Club,”and held photo exhibitions.

“He always does interesting things quietly, including getting himself in trouble,” said Chang Hsiao-Hsiong, Assistant Professor of the Department of Dance of TNUA, who taught Huang for over 5 years and a half. Huang never cared about rankings, but his own experiments on the stage. Once, he flung flour and feathers into the air, and the very next day, Chang was faced with a complaint from a teacher who was allergic to dust.

Through Manfei Lo’s recommendation, Huang entered the Cloud Gate, where the founder Lin Hwai-min came to appreciate his talents. With his creativity and capabilities in interdisciplinary art, Huang was described by Lin as “awfully talented.”

In 2014, Huang left Cloud Gate and founded Taiwan’s second professional dance group – “Huang Yi Studio +.”

From his graduation production, SPIN 2010, to the most anticipated HUANG YI & KUKA, Robot Violin, Objects, and his latest work Under the Horizon, all his multidisciplinary artworks intertwined dancing with materials, machinery, and technology.

To him, what bridges the gap between technology and art, is not his multidisciplinary artwork, but life. “When technology becomes part of your life, it naturally changes the way you think,” he said. “Not everyone has the ability to interpret this kind of artwork, so I should be more grateful for this gift of mine.”

According to Professor Chang, Huang differs from other choreographers as he does not entirely rely on a dancer’s body to tell stories, but more on his clear, logical, and analytical mind.

As KUKA’s dance partner, Huang has a closer relationship with KUKA than KUKA’s manufacturers. He even had to sign a declaration form to ensure that he himself will be held responsible for any injuries resulting in dancing with the robot. Therefore, Huang had to double the rehearsal time to make sure all the codes are in order. “Dancing with KUKA is like splitting between two trucks. If one line of code gets out of order, I’ll be smashed.” Though putting his own life in danger, he still wants to dance with this robot. It is to make up for his lost childhood dream of befriending a robot.

Image: Jacob Blickenstaff (New York Times)

A One-Minute Dance Takes 20 Hours of Programming

Dancing all the way to coming-of-age, Huang not only danced with a robot, but also lived like one.

From a boy to a man, Huang has taught himself to control his own feelings, and be a perfect, well-behaved son.

“It’s better being a robot.” Huang has long trained himself to become detached from all his emotions, to stay calm when faced with urgent situations.

Even his way of communication with his dancers is highly digitized. When he is not happy with a certain movement, he leaves a comment on the video clip. “If you dancers get upset, blame the video, not me,” he said in delight.

 “Dealing with a man without emotions can be even more agitating. We fear that he might become too repressed,” said Lin Jou-wen, a dancer who had worked with Huang for over 10 years. “It gets pretty stressful sometimes, but gradually we developed a way of working together.”

To spin delicate human emotions into iron-cold robots, Huang has taught himself coding. He analyzes songs at the scale of milliseconds, navigating movements with precision by cutting the margin of error down to centimeters.

Choreographing a one-minute dance could take Huang 10-20 hours of programming. Huang even quantifies emotions through data analysis, converting the average tilt of head of a ‘sad’ person into parameters.

As if with superpowers, Huang is able to read the duration of a blink, the angle of the neck, or the tilt of the eye of each person, and convert them into a set a data in his mind. Parametric equations automatically flow out from his brain even when he is given nothing but a piece of photo to look at.

Image: Kuo-Tai Liu

“The harshest thing Huang ever said to us was: ‘KUKA can’t change. It will never be its problem,’” recalled Hu Chien, co-founder of Huang Yi Studio +. Lin Jou-wen also admitted that she had once hated the robot, since KUKA was the only one who never got blamed for anything.

The biggest challenge of dancing with a robot is that robots never change, which brings out and amplifies the flaws of human beings. Humans get angry, frightened, or tired, while robots convey no emotions, obey all orders, and accept every piece of information inserted.

“We always get afraid of things stronger than us. We fear to become the weaker, the replaced.”However, Huang seems to hold a pretty optimistic view on that issue, believing that robots are merely species of a different kind with different systems. They will never replace humans. (Read: Should People Fear Robots? & Success in the Age of AI) It took some time for Lin Jou-wen to realize her own strength over KUKA: Human’s ability to break rules and explore new things.

“Robots will fall cheap in the future. But I like things that are limited in time. It makes you want to seize the precious moments they give you. Life is limited in time, too, and that’s what makes art valuable,” said Huang.

Next Move: Dance With AI

Though he has already come a long way, Huang is now facing his biggest competitor – HUANG YI & KUKA.

In order to beat himself, his next move will be developing a new form of AI-integrated art. From creations to keep childhood memories, to performances that intertwine AI and face recognition technologies, Huang has found his niche and built his own social enterprise that took performing arts to new heights.

Though being equipped with the reasoning of an engineer, Huang is deeply aware that he still retains a soft spot in his heart. His works convey messages of life-and-death or war issues.

“To fulfill a dream, you will have to face a lot of disturbing things in life. And that’s when you need reason.” From a boy who once admired Doreamon, to a digital artist that never gives in to harsh reality, Huang continues to push the realm of art to new extremes with reason and passion.

Translated by Sharon Tseng.


Additional Reading

♦ Should People Fear Robots?
♦ Social Robots to be the Next Smartphones
♦ Can Taiwan Find an AI Niche?
♦ 'In Respect of My Body, My Best Toner Is My Sweat'

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