U&I Robotic Dance – A Robot FlashMob

“U&I-Robotic Dance” is the first FlashMob for robots where different types of robots interact in a dance. U&I is open for androids, insectoids, canoids, diverse household robots, industrial robots and last but not least drones. “U&I” is perfect for any occasion where robots come together or for places where at least 5 robots are available.
“U &I” can take place in schools and universities as part of a robotic workshop, where kids and students can improve their coding skills. It can also happen at art festival or industrial fairs to highlight the complexity of different kinds of robots. Because it has different levels of complexity it is very easily adaptable to and can also happen as a “Bring Your Own Robot” (BYOR) project. If you are interested feel free to send an emial to robotic-dance@kreissig.net 🙂

Collaborative Art Project

U&I-RD is conceived as an open collaborative art project: we invite robot handlers and programmers to develop and test new ideas.

We’ll also go dancing with robots who are ready for heavy loads 🙂

Different Levels of Complexity

U&I Robotic Dance offers a mix of movement patterns (choreographies) in different levels of complexity, depending on the skills of the programmers. All levels permit different types of robots to dance together and to also interact with human dancers.

Beginners – 160 Seconds


The easiest version is “160 Seconds” where the movement patterns are very simple and the music is set to a speed of 120 bpm (beats per minute).

Advanced – 600 Seconds

The next level version is “600 Seconds” providing more time and space for complex movements and creative free-style contributions by the programmers.

U&I Expert level

The expert-level can happen to basically any music and is developped in close collaboration for festivals and companies.

600 Seconds – The Special Sections

In the extended 600 second version every species of robots has time to present movements which are unique and characteristic. The following 5 subsections and the Grand Finale are in testing at the moment:

  • Peter-Pan-&-Flying-Fairies – miniature drones buzz around a human dancer
  • Crawling-Critters – robotic spiders and insects and flood the floor
  • Humanoid-Disco – humans and humanoids dance – and flirt 😉
  • Sing-Along – robot-created sounds produce melodies
  • Gulliver-Lilliput – industrial robots lift and spin dancers
  • Grand Finale – all robots move in absolutely synchronization!

Drones – Peter Pan and the Flying Fairies

This section focuses on the organized spatial patterns of miniature drones.
They will circle and spin as cloud like swarms and line up to geometric patterns. This will include 1-dimensional “line ups”, 2-dimensional “planes” and 3-dimensional crystal formations.
As a climax they will circle around Peter Pan, up to 8 drones on every level.

Please be aware: due to the special demands and regulations for drones we may have to limit the amount of participating drones. All drone movements have to be pre-programmed for the indoor performances. In the outdoor events drone handlers can steer their drones live.

Crawling-Critters

Spiders and insects – arachnoid and insectoid robots – will flood the dance floor or specially prepared small critter stages on tables. They will move in wanve like patterns.
Tiny drones hovering above them may also be included.

Humanoid-Disco – Hit the Flirt Floor

In this section, humanoids dance together with real people, partly freely improvised, partly in a group choreography. So we bring them together to find out who flirts with whom 🙂

Sing-Along – the Robot Orchestra

Very often robots have been used to produce music, usually copying the way humans do so. One of the most famous experiments is the James Bond theme performed by a swarm of quadrotor drones.

“Drone Xylophone” performs the James Bond theme

The drone xylophone of the MIT is definitely one of the most fascinating projects. But as with most projects all the drones are identical. This facilitates programming and execution.
As with all other segments we take a new approach, bringing together different robots. In this experimental section we try make use of the fact that by changing the speed of robots you may tune them into different frequencies. This way simple melodies will arise from the normal buzz.

Gulliver-Lilliput – Industrial Robots

Industrial robots will be in a close and intense interaction with the dancers.
The robots serve as partners for the dancers, who will be touched, lifted and whirled just like. Styles can vary between a neraly classical pas de deux to lifts and flips from Lindy Hop, Rock`n Roll and other acrobatic dance forms.

Grand-Finale – Synchronicity

The climax is a part of absolutely synchronized choreography, in which all robots and dancers will follow the same spatial patterns together.
This way we create the sensation of peaceful collaboration in an artistic effort.

160 Seconds Corona-Home-Stay-Version

Due to the corona pandemic we developed a special Corona Stay Home Edition which was premiered on May 23rd 2020:

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How it all started

As a non competitive BYOR project we create an atmosphere where art and technology blend in a unique way.
The initiator – choreographer and concept artist TeeKay – has a vast experience in bringing people together to perform. In 2007 his project “Dance the Cranko” turned the whole city of Stuttgart into an entertaining summer dance class.

“U & I Robotic Flash Mob” was first presented in September 2019 at the German AI conference in Kassel. Heise Online, one of Germanys most prestigious IT-platforms published made it their headline in the article published about the conference.

U&I Robotic Dance is part of CARDS, a larger-scale artistic research project involving AI for automated movement anaylsis.

What is a FlashMob ?

Dancers after a rehearsal for “Don’t be shy” – Festival-Flashmob in Reutlingen 2017

For thousands of years people all over the world have used dance as an art form capable of bringing humans together without using words, only relying on body language and the expression of feelings through movement. Usually this would happen at large festivals and holidays, in locations such as barns or ballrooms, very often involving a lot of preparation and rehearsals in the weeks and monts before the occasion.
FlashMobs habe changed this pattern – the gathering of many interested dancers in a location where the dance of masses provides an astonishing moment of surprise.
U&I-RD takes this concept to a new level.

This subpage was last updated in February 2022. In case you are able to spot any typos or a blocked link, please do not hesitate and let us know by sending an email to robotic-dance@kreissig.net including a link of the specific subsite.
We appreciate your feedback and hope you will have a wonderful day :- )
Please follow all precautions due to the pandemic.
Stay healthy 🙂