His use of film and video in decades past brought new ways of making and seeing dance. And throughout the 1990s, he's used animation software, called Life Forms, to create many of the movement phrases that he teaches to his troupe. The computer learns from the dancers, in other words, generating figures that move like humans rather than humans who move like robots. But last fall, three young animators left their jobs at Glen Cove's Acclaim Entertainment Inc., where they created special effects for video games and Batman movies. After finding an affordable loft at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they hung out a shingle for Modern Uprising Studios.
Cables snake over to a bank of computers.
Several pairs of black unitards hang on nearby hooks, and a drawer holds little balls covered with reflective tape and Velcro. These, Robinson says, are the tools of the trade. As the dancers suited up in black spandex, dozens of the reflective balls, or markers, were stuck to their bodies. Then each dancer performed 70 phrases of movement over the course of several minutes. As they danced, the cameras recorded the light reflecting off the moving markers, but not the dancers' physical appearance.