Of Equal Place:
Isotopes in Motion
Of Equal Place: Isotopes in Motion is a multimedia performance and engagement that—by centering youth, women, and people of color in its explorations of nuclear physics and dance—expands who gets to dance and who gets to be a scientist .
Who gets to dance?
Students, faculty, physicists at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University; dancers from Dance Exchange and Happendance; leaders at the Wharton Center Institute for Arts & Creativity and WaMPS (Women & Minorities in the Physical Sciences) graduate student organization; local youth, audience members, and more.
Partnering Artists Keith Thompson and and Ami Dowden-Fant are leading the project as Creative Director and Director of Creative Engagement respectively. Former Dance Exchange Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Johnson-Levine contributed to early development of the project and choreography.
What is it about?
The work delves into research being done at FRIB while exploring themes that resonate in both nuclear physics and dance: stability and instability, measurement, acceleration, fragmentation, and navigating mystery. The performance work highlights the contributions of youth, women and people of color in science through a cast diverse in age, race, and cultural backgrounds.
During pre- and post-show workshops, performers and audience members use movements from the show, insights from science experts, and collaborative choreographic tools to explore physics concepts. This embodied learning deepens science knowledge while inviting participants to reimagine personal connections to the fields of science and dance.
Where is it happening?
Of Equal Place was developed at Michigan State University in collaboration with a range of partners within and beyond the university. The 55-minute performance with a cast of dancers, scientists, and local youth takes place onstage, but engagement with and impact of the work stretches beyond the proscenium into post-show workshops, a dance and science study guide, classroom discussions across campus, and more.
Why does it matter?
Dance Exchange has been working at the intersection of dance and science making dances about science in classrooms, on stages, in labs, and in museums throughout our history. Of Equal Place builds on the work of Dance Exchange founder Liz Lerman’s The Matter of Origins and related research by the National Science Foundation. Based on insights that creative engagement can support informal science education, the project engages partners and audiences across a range of disciplines, ages, genders, racial identities, and more in meaningful moving, making, and learning. In doing so, Of Equal Place secures and expands possibilities for those who have historically not had an equal place in these fields but whose potential is endless.
“The collaboration with Dance Exchange has given me the opportunity to observe the world of physics, my own world, from a different perspective. Through their curiosity and enthusiasm, and also through their inquisitive questions, Dance Exchange bridges the gap between science and art. The result is a creative and diverse collaboration with the common goal of promoting science and art together.”
— Artemis Spyrou, Physicist, Michigan State University
Photos on this page Malik H. Carter and others.