Andrea Knowlton – “Embodied Futures: AI, Improvisation, and the Evolution of Dance”

Andrea Knowlton is an artist, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of dance and technology. Her public lecture will be followed by a 30-minute panel discussion that includes Assistant Professor of Photography and Expanded Media Ash Smith and an open reception in the Dance Theatre lobby. This event is presented by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of dance, the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

Knowlton has premiered stage works in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, and presents films nationally and internationally at festivals including Dance Camera West, Screen Dance International, and The Place London. She is a published author, with her research on Movement & Artificial Intelligence in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology receiving extensive support from the National Science Foundation.

That project was a collaboration with Brian Magerko, professor and director of graduate studies in digital media at Georgia Tech, in which the avatar (a.k.a. Agent), after extensive training by dancing with humans, becomes a digital dance partner that can respond to human movement in real time. It improvises alongside the human dancer with its own artificially intelligent power, creating the world’s first human/AI improvised dance performance. This research is shared in forums and conferences nationally, including a keynote speech at the National Association of Schools of Dance.

Knowlton is an associate professor at Kennesaw State University, where she has served as assistant chair for the department of dance, and Faculty Research Champion in Innovative Creativity for the Office of Research. She is the recipient of the Geer College of the Arts Early Career Faculty Award, and the KSU Outstanding Research & Creative Activity Award. She teaches courses in dance technique, filmmaking, improvisation, and pedagogy, and holds a BFA in Dance/Choreography from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City and an MFA in Choreography/Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts.