Muybridge Centipede Tron Dance

So you might have seen the ‘Japan Tron Dance’ video gone viral, the Wrecking Crew Orchestra’s remote-controlled LCD suit extravaganza to a medley of Daft Punk, Justice, and Flux Pavilion . If not, here it is:

What makes me want to write about this is their use of the lighting to create a stop-motion effect (see around 1:35 and 2:29). The individual choreography itself isn’t that interesting – a bit of nu-street dance hand and shoulder waving- and the group coordination- their alignments, directions and gatherings- are not animated or made interesting by their own movements but by the technological choreography. The control of the body lighting makes their efforts sequential, turning the stage into an open screen where we see many bodies illustrate one movement crystallised into frozen, momentary segments.