dance Lessons from nature
How do tiny termites build great air-conditioned mounds taller than a giraffe? How do ants instinctively know how to build a giant bridge with their bodies? Where does the choreography come from when starlings swoop and sweep in mesmerising murmuration, or a thousand fish school? The answer is that each individual follows basic rules that tell it how to respond. There are many examples in the human world. Consider pedestrians making their way down a busy street. Collisions are rare – there is a kind of flow. Or traffic where each driver follows the local rules and joins the others to create new dynamics. Throughout Nature, such systems are everywhere. Smaller units interact to make something new. This ubiquitous and important phenomenon is the basis of a new participatory event called SWARM DANCE.
Images: 3 and 6 - Madalina Sas; 4 and 5 - Brendan Foster.
SWARM DANCE begins with an illustrated mini-talk by a scientist about nature’s remarkable systems. Then comes the dancing, for there is perhaps no better example of this kind of collective intelligence than dance. As participants don their headphones they enter another world like fish gliding into water. In the world of building the beat is intense and direct. The dance leader inspires everyone as we build with our bodies, connecting, and breaking, and re-forming new structures, sensing when we shall break them apart and reform. In flocking the music is gentle and soothing, a dance artist guides the group to intuit what the rest will do. Turn after turn different leaders emerge and then dissolve into the group. The learning world is a tremendous party – good ideas and fashions are born. The mood is infectious, and the music irresistible.
When the dancing is over, we create giant collages from bright geometric pieces. Just by following the simplest rules, new structures grow.
A giant collage made at the Imperial Festival 2024, 1.5 x 2m.
Participants include families, adults of all ages, neuro diverse groups and senior executives. When we ask “What did you learn on the Swarm Dancefloor?” they say: “The importance of leaders everywhere”; “The power of non-vocal communication”; “Creativity is enhanced together”, “Flow can overtake process”; “Trust and focus lead to success”; “You can instinctively tell when it starts working”, “Amazing what we all achieve when we work together”; “Teamwork synchronisation”; “Natural connections are formed by smaller groups into bigger groups”; “I found that my mum is cray, cray, crazy when it comes to dance”; “It was amazing we were like one big community”; “That bees make a figure of 8 that tell other bees where the flowers are”. “Through basic prompts and social conform we all merge and synergise”; “Lots of animals flock together to form something beautiful”; “When you work together in a swarm you create one big picture”; “Small things can get together and become one big, amazing thing”.
"What did you learn on the swarm dance-floor?" Imperial Festival, 2024.
SWARM DANCE hosts up to several hundred people at a time and as few as 20. It reminds us that we are all part of something bigger; that the rules matter and that with the right conditions we can intuitively work together to make remarkable, useful and beautiful things.
SWARM DANCE at the Blavatnik Building of Tate Modern. Image Credit: Madalina Sas
Thank you to: Jim Kent, my neighbour, economist, comedian and teacher, who helped plant the seed of this idea. Scientists - Madalina Sas, Julie McCann, Mike Breza, Kyle Major, and Billy Flanaghan; Dance artists - Yanaëlle Ritter, Thomasin Gülgeç and Nya Bardouille, my co-director, dance artist Emma Bellerby; and Lara Mistry, James Romero and Sevinc Kisacik of the Imperial Public Engagement Team and who supported and helped us develop our project for diverse audiences. They were with us every step of the way. And a huge ‘thank you’ to the 1,500 participants who have discovered the transformative power of the collective with us.
If you would like to join, drop me a line.
To check out our music channels follow the links….. building, flocking and learning