When watching a talented dancer perform, the music and movement might be so in sync that it seems like the song is magically flowing out of the performer's body. At a concert in Tokyo this past November, that was actually the case. But it wasn't magic making it happen.
During the concert, world-renowned dancer Kaiji Moriyama demonstrated an artificial intelligence system that can transform dance movements into piano music. Developed by Yamaha, the "Dance to Piano Performance System" can detect movement in real time using four kinds of sensors attached to a dancer's body. The AI then instantly translates those movements into musical data, and sends the information to a Yamaha Disklavier player piano.
The result: Moriyama danced to the music, and played it, at the same time. Check out the video below to see it for yourself.
"As the AI system processed and translated my dance movements into music, I felt reawakened to the incredible power of human beings to sense thought and action," Moriyama said in a statement.
Yamaha said the performance "represents steady progress in the pursuit of new forms of artistic expression." The company plans to continue developing this technology to "further expand the possibilities for human expression."
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"At Yamaha, we believe that AI will become a bridge between human beings and musical instruments," Motoichi Tamura, a general manager in Yamaha's research and development division, said in a statement. "We are continuing our AI development activities to enable human beings to have freer and more direct expression through musical instruments."
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