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NASA Featured at Art and Technology Ingenuity Festival

Confluence: Dancing in the Wind

image of 5 dancers interpreting the effects of wind
Susana Weingarten de Evert, Tom Evert, Megan Haas, Alba Topulli and Franklin Crute, of DancEvert, interpret the effects of wind. Credit: NASA

Art and technology merged Labor Day weekend 2005 in an extraordinary celebration of creativity. The first Ingenuity Festival attracted an estimated 70,000 people to downtown Cleveland, and NASA was one of the main attractions.

The three-day event explored the intersections between technology and art by presenting more than 200 performances with exhibits from more than 1,000 artists and innovators. Dancers, actors and musicians graced four outdoor stages while art galleries and technology exhibits filled 14 buildings.

In the spirit of collaboration, NASA’s Glenn Research Center broke the mold by participating in a modern dance performance. Entitled “Confluence,” the routine used wind, dance and flowing fabric to demonstrate the aeronautic states of balance and turbulence.

It all started late last year when festival organizers asked NASA Glenn to host a tour for participating artists looking for inspiration. The tour gave the artists an inside look at facilities including the Graphics Visualization Lab.

“The artistic renderings of flight that line the walls really struck me,” choreographer Tom Evert said. “I saw these images of air flowing over wings and thought I could make a dance piece that demonstrates that scientific principle.”

Evert and his wife, Susana Weingarten de Evert, performed the routine with three members of their dance company, DancEvert. They even convinced two NASA employees who were serving as technical consultants to participate. Artist Carol Adams designed set decorations and sweeping fabric props to enhance the piece, which was staged in the atrium of a downtown office building.

Though NASA Community Relations Specialist David DeFelice and Senior Research Engineer Tom Benson were surprised to be swept into the performance, they approached it with open minds.

“I gained a real appreciation for what dancers do, how hard they work and how much it means to them,” Benson said.

At the beginning of the performance, Benson explained how a plane starts to fly, and air moves its wings in a nice, uniform flow gaining speed, while the airflow becomes chaotic, or turbulent.

The dancers mimicked this phenomenon, moving slowly and gracefully under the gentle breeze of fans until DeFelice and Benson entered the set with menacing leaf blowers. The dancers’ movements gradually became more and more chaotic, and a colorful assortment of scarves and feather boas sailed through the atrium.

image of dancer being held up in the air portraying Mother Nature
Benson (left) and DeFelice (right) carry Mother Nature, played by Weingarten de Evert. Credit:  SGT/Jan Wittry

The performance was meant to be educational, and audience members weren’t the only ones who learned something. Both the dancers and NASA participants realized just how much art and science have in common.

“The best science is artistic, and the best art is scientific,” Evert said. “When I’m choreographing a piece about wind, I have to solve problems, experiment, measure the stage and make adjustments. It’s a very similar process.”

Benson agreed. “At NASA, we try to understand and work with Mother Nature to produce more efficient aircraft,” he said. “When the problems are too great, we can only dance to Mother Nature’s tune.”

While Confluence received most of the praise and attention — one critic called it “magical” and “a prophetic piece” — other NASA Glenn exhibits also were on display throughout the weekend.

Festival-goers learned how to land a Space Shuttle in the Virtual Reality Flight Simulator and experienced the forces of lift and drag at a wind tunnel exhibit. A small collection of NASA art illustrated futuristic flight concepts.

On Sunday, NASA’s Glenn Research Center Garrett Morgan Commercialization Initiative debuted “Inspiring Today’s Youth for Tomorrow’s Opportunities.” This program uses entertainers and interactive multimedia activities to inspire youth to pursue technology careers in entertainment.

“The whole event was a big success,” said DeFelice. “We were able to reach a new audience and convey the message that engineering is creative and often artistic.”

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