Choreograph-ing Tomorrow

This project employs speculative design and strategic foresight to interrogate the evolving relationship between technology and dance. It explores how emerging AI systems and market dynamics influence artistic agency, cultural preservation, and the very essence of human movement. By envisioning a future where dance is both a creative expression and a tradable commodity, the work challenges us to consider the ethical, socioeconomic, and aesthetic implications of blending physical performance with digital surveillance, financial incentives, and technical intervention. Through immersive artifacts, the project invites us to reflect on the balance between innovation and tradition, questioning whether technology can truly augment the human spirit without diluting its individuality and cultural richness.

Research Question

How do dancers perceive the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and dance in shaping cultural preservation, creative expression, and ethical design within future digital performance ecosystems?

TL;DR

What:
This project explores how artificial intelligence might shape the future of dance, using speculative design and strategic foresight to examine cultural, ethical, and creative implications.
How:
It combines scenario planning (via STEEPLEM framework) and participatory workshops with dancers, who co-created speculative artifacts and stories based on imagined futures of AI in dance.
Why:
It aims to surface overlooked concerns—like loss of agency, cultural erasure, and commodification—before such futures become real, fostering more human-centered and culturally sensitive AI design.
What Came Out:
Key outcomes include four scenario worlds, themes around physicality and equity, and a critical design fiction—the Dance Stock Market—that satirizes the commercialization of movement.
So What:
The project offers a methodological contribution for HCI and creative AI, showing how speculative approaches can engage stakeholders in shaping more ethical and inclusive technological futures.

Explore Speculative Artifacts

Inspiration

LuminAI was a groundbreaking performance at Kennesaw State University where dancers co-created improvised movement with an AI partner, showcasing real-time collaboration between human expression and machine intelligence. I contributed as a researcher and designer, creating the interactive interface of the tool and guiding its integration into the dance curriculum and performance.

My understanding of technology in this dynamic creative space of dance stems from my learnings with LuminAI.

Phase 1: Strategic Foresight

What insights does strategic foresight offer into emerging tensions between cultural preservation and digital transformation in dance?

In Phase 1, I adopted a strategic foresight approach to map out how dance technologies might evolve and be adopted in the future. Strategic foresight typically involves identifying key uncertainties and then using those to generate a range of possible futures. This gives us a structured method for scenario creation.

While it's more commonly used in organizational planning, foresight methods are increasingly being recognized in HCI as valuable tools for grappling with uncertain and complex futures—especially when we want to surface unexpected outcomes or unintended consequences.

For my study, I used the STEEPLEM framework—which stands for Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical, and Military. This framework helped ensure the scenarios addressed a wide range of systemic factors. It’s a useful lens when you’re trying to imagine how multiple forces might interact over time to shape a field—like dance—in surprising ways.

I began by exploring 35 uncertainties shaping the future of dance—ranging from public interest and globalization to censorship, cultural appropriation, and trauma rehabilitation.

To focus the inquiry, I selected 8 critical uncertainties that were under-discussed yet held potential for radically different futures. I then combined these into four 2x2 grids, a foresight method that yielded 16 unique speculative scenarios, each based on contrasting tensions.

The goal was to create diverse future worlds that remained broad enough to engage multiple stakeholders. For each scenario, I drafted 1–2 sentence narratives, identifying the technologies involved, who interacts with them, and the societal consequences.

I decided to narrow this number down to make room for in-depth discussions during the 60-minute workshops with participants.

I selected four scenarios that each highlighted different dimensions of AI technology in dance, aligning with my research goals. These offered breadth and diversity of potential cultural, ethical, and creative issues. My main goals for these workshops were to gather feedback on the scenario ideas, understand participants’ perspectives, and collaboratively expand these speculative worlds. Ultimately, I wanted to see which scenario generated the richest discussion to guide the next phase. The four workshops were:

In the workshops, I invited dancers and dance researchers to imagine and reflect on futures of AI in dance. Each session had two participants and focused on one scenario. I started with a scenario discussion, guided by the STEEPLEM framework to prompt reflection across social, technological, and other systemic factors. Then, participants designed objects that could exist in the scenario world—ranging from technologies to laws or institutions—through writing, drawing, or description. Finally, they created short stories using a “story spine” template. These activities drew on their dance expertise and lived experience to expand and enrich each speculative world.

After all four workshops, I reflected on the discussions that emerged. One scenario clearly stood out—it sparked the most engaged dialogue, especially around cultural preservation and ethics. Participants raised questions that directly aligned with my core research inquiry: how dancers navigate the evolving relationship between AI, tradition, and innovation. Given the depth and relevance of these insights, I chose to focus further exploration on the Viral Dance Monopolies scenario.

Phase 2: Artifacts

What issues arise around technological immersion, and how do dancers respond to varying levels of control and interaction in these systems?

Speculative World: The Dance Stock Market

Imagine a full economy where dance moves have market value. Each move or style can be bought/sold as shares, influenced by popularity, trends, and royalties. This scenario bridges cultural expression with financial speculation.

These artifacts collectively provide a satirical but thought-provoking lens on how artistic expression, technology, and market forces might collide. They make abstract issues (like loss of creativity or fair compensation) more accessible and debatable for designers and the dance community.

The Movement Times

A fictional newspaper page with articles on dance stock ownership, who did it first vs who documented it first, drawing parallels to NFTs and the music industry.

Themes:

How media systems shape value and legitimacy
Documentation as power

Investor.gov

A fictional government webpage outlining regulations by a “United Dance Organization,” as if dance markets were overseen like securities.

Themes:

Institutional control of artistic freedom
Legibility of creativity to systems of power

Ownership Agreement

A contract for the rights to a viral dance (the “Ketchup Song” step). The original song was made in 2001 and the contract was remade in 2031 with more shares for the choreographer.

Themes:

Intellectual property in embodied art
Labor rights and creative contribution

Super Bowl performance permit

A permit for the commercial rights to perform at Super Bowl half time. The permit includes approved and prohibited movements along with mention of compliance.

Themes:

Surveillance and body politics
Cultural misinterpretation and moral policing

Instagram Reels

Influencers highlighting movement tracking and pitfalls of the algorithms.

Themes:

Fragility and exploitability of digital attention economies
Bias, Virality, and Market Manipulation

GrooveShares Application

A mock trading platform/ social media profile for “stepfluencers” to manage dance move investments

Themes:

Platformization of Creative Identity
Influencer culture and self-branding

Phase 3: Evaluation

What value do dancers and researchers find in using speculative design to surface complex socio-technical questions in dance?

In the last phase of the project I worked on investigating value for dancers and dance researchers. I conducted 6 hour long interviews where I introduced my artifacts to participants. They were asked to think out loud while interacting with them and were asked a few semi-structured questions later.

Analysis of the evaluation interviews conducted highlighted multiple themes, including ones that were a part of the initial research question - which I will take the opportunity to reiterate on: How do dancers perceive the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and dance in shaping cultural preservation, creative expression, and ethical design within future digital performance ecosystems?

Future Work

Advancing Responsible Innovation in Creative AI
Methodological Blueprint for Future-Imagining in HCI
Bridging Speculation and Practice
Scaling Participatory Futuring Across Domains
Embedding Futures Thinking in Design Education & Research