Industrial Robot Choreography: How Yaskawa Robots Performed With ELEVENPLAY

Industrial robot choreography transforms programmed robot movement into a timed performance involving dancers, music, physical objects, lighting, and projected images. In the 2015 production motion, six Yaskawa industrial robots performed alongside dancers from ELEVENPLAY as part of a collaboration with Rhizomatiks Research for Yaskawa Electric Corporation’s centenary.

The robots did not hear the music, interpret the dancers, or improvise their own movements. Choreographer MIKIKO designed the movement language, the production team created robot animations in Maya, and Yaskawa specialists translated those motions into executable industrial robot programs using MotoSim.

The performance is important because it reveals what robot choreography actually requires: artistic direction, digital animation, robot simulation, timing control, payload engineering, custom tooling, projection mapping, repeated rehearsal, and strict safety management.

What Was the Yaskawa, Rhizomatiks, and ELEVENPLAY Performance?

motion was created for the centenary celebration of Yaskawa Electric Corporation and presented at the opening ceremony of Yaskawa Robot Village on 1 June 2015.

The production brought together:

• Yaskawa Electric Corporation;
• Rhizomatiks Research;
• ELEVENPLAY;
• choreographer and stage director MIKIKO;
• creative director Daito Manabe;
• technical director Motoi Ishibashi;
• robot programmers, hardware specialists, dancers, CG artists, projection technicians, and stage-management personnel.

The performance explored the harmonisation of humans and robots rather than presenting the machines as replacements for dancers.

Its visual language moved between:

• deliberately mechanical robot motion;
• movement designed to resemble human gesture;
• direct interaction between dancers and machines;
• robot-to-robot object transfer;
• flying geometric forms;
• projection and reflected imagery;
• music-driven sequencing.

The result was a staged system in which human bodies, industrial arms, suspended objects, light, and digital images shared one choreographic environment.

Which Yaskawa Robots Were Used?

The documented technical configuration included six Yaskawa industrial robots:

• two Yaskawa SDA10 dual-arm robots;
• two Yaskawa MH50 handling robots;
• two Yaskawa MA1440 arc-welding robots.

These robots were originally engineered for different industrial applications. Their use in the performance did not erase those technical differences.

The artistic team used the contrast between these machines rather than attempting to make all six behave identically.

Selection principle: a robot’s industrial purpose does not determine its artistic role, but payload, reach, axis configuration, speed, controller, and physical silhouette still shape the choreography.

How Human Choreography Became Robot Movement

The production did not begin by manually teaching every pose directly with a robot pendant.

MIKIKO first developed the intended movement language. The team then created CG representations of the robot choreography before transferring the motion into the Yaskawa programming environment.

A simplified workflow included:

1. Concept Development: define the relationship between dancers, robots, cubes, projections, and music.
2. Human Choreography: compose the desired gestures, timing, stage positions, and visual rhythm.
3. CG Animation: represent robot-arm motion in Maya.
4. Robot Translation: import or rebuild the movement inside Yaskawa MotoSim.
5. Kinematic Validation: check whether the real robot can reach the intended poses.
6. Collision Review: verify clearance between robots, dancers, cubes, scenery, and stage equipment.
7. Physical Programming: load the executable motion into the robot controllers.
8. Timing Adjustment: change robot speed and sequence duration on the real machines.
9. Rehearsal: coordinate robot motion with dancers, music, projection, and suspended objects.
10. Show Validation: establish repeatable start positions, sequence cues, stops, and safe recovery procedures.

The CG animation expressed the artistic intention. MotoSim and the real controllers determined what could be executed safely by the industrial hardware.

Why Maya Animation Could Not Be Sent Directly to the Robots

A visually convincing animation is not automatically an executable robot program.

Animation software can create movement without accounting fully for:

• joint-angle limits;
• robot singularities;
• maximum joint velocity;
• acceleration and deceleration;
• payload and inertia;
• tool-centre-point definition;
• collision with other robots;
• controller interpolation;
• safe approach and departure paths;
• physical stopping distance.

A robot pose may look natural in Maya while forcing an impossible or unstable wrist configuration on the physical machine.

The production team therefore had to translate the desired motion into the language of robot kinematics and industrial control.

This translation is central to industrial robot choreography. The artistic movement must survive contact with mechanical limits.

What MotoSim Contributed

Yaskawa MotoSim is an offline programming and robot simulation environment used to model robot cells and test movement before physical execution.

For a performance project, simulation can support:

• reachability analysis;
• robot placement on the stage;
• joint-configuration review;
• collision detection;
• trajectory development;
• tool and cube interaction;
• coordination between several robots;
• estimation of sequence duration;
• offline programming before venue access.

Simulation reduces risk but does not eliminate physical rehearsal.

The real robots may move differently because of:

• controller interpolation;
• actual payload;
• vacuum-tool behaviour;
• cube position;
• stage tolerances;
• robot calibration;
• communication timing;
• acceleration settings.

The final timing and speed were therefore adjusted with the actual machines in motion.

Why Industrial Robots Do Not Have an Innate Sense of Rhythm

An industrial robot controller does not listen to music and feel a beat. It executes commands according to programmed motion parameters and controller logic.

Musical synchronisation must be engineered through:

• predefined sequence duration;
• external triggers;
• cue points;
• robot speed settings;
• music or show-control timecode;
• PLC or digital I/O signals;
• rehearsed transitions;
• resynchronisation points.

The robot may begin a sequence at the correct musical moment and still finish slightly early or late.

Possible causes include:

• different acceleration profiles;
• path blending;
• controller cycle behaviour;
• payload variation;
• small differences between theoretical and real movement;
• communication latency;
• sequence transitions.

The motion team addressed this by dividing the performance into sections and using breakpoints at which the robot sequence could be aligned again with the music.

How Sequence Breakpoints Preserve Synchronisation

A long uninterrupted robot program can accumulate timing deviation.

Instead of allowing that deviation to continue through the whole performance, the production divided the show into shorter segments.

At a breakpoint:

• the robot completes a defined motion;
• the system reaches a known pose or state;
• the music and robot sequence are checked or triggered together;
• the next segment begins from a controlled reference.

This structure behaves like choreographic punctuation.

It provides technical advantages:

• limits timing drift;
• simplifies rehearsal;
• creates safer recovery points;
• allows sections to be tested independently;
• reduces the consequences of a delayed cue;
• supports coordination with dancers and projection.

The performance therefore did not depend on the robots maintaining perfect musical timing for one continuous sequence.

How Robot Speed Becomes an Expressive Variable

The path defines where the robot moves. Speed determines how that path is perceived.

A single trajectory can appear:

• mechanical when executed with abrupt acceleration and exact stops;
• fluid when corners are blended and speed changes gradually;
• hesitant when interrupted by pauses;
• aggressive when performed rapidly with large spatial movement;
• careful when the tool approaches an object slowly;
• human-like when timing includes asymmetry and controlled variation.

The production explicitly explored the transition from machine-like motion toward movement designed to resemble human gesture.

This does not mean that the robot became biologically fluid. Its movement remained governed by:

• joint mechanics;
• controller interpolation;
• axis velocity limits;
• payload;
• industrial safety constraints.

Expressiveness came from composing within those constraints.

Robot Choreography Is Not Human Choreography Copied Mechanically

A human dancer and an industrial robot do not share the same body.

A dancer has:

• muscles and flexible joints;
• balance and gravity awareness;
• continuous sensory feedback;
• breathing and fatigue;
• facial and emotional expression;
• the ability to improvise during performance.

An industrial robot has:

• rigid links;
• motor-driven axes;
• defined joint limits;
• controller-based path interpolation;
• repeatable trajectories;
• no embodied understanding of meaning or rhythm.

Successful robot choreography therefore does not merely copy human movement.

It considers:

• the robot’s silhouette;
• axis sequencing;
• mechanical rhythm;
• reach and spatial scale;
• the visual effect of coordinated joints;
• interaction with objects;
• contrast with the dancers’ bodies.

How the Robots Manipulated Stage Objects

The six robot arms were equipped with air-powered suction tooling that allowed them to hold and move cubes.

A vacuum-based tool requires more than attaching a suction cup to the robot wrist.

The system must account for:

• cube material and surface quality;
• available contact area;
• vacuum pressure;
• seal reliability;
• tool payload;
• centre of gravity;
• acceleration during movement;
• confirmation that the object has been acquired;
• safe behaviour if vacuum is lost.

The choreography included robots passing cubes from one machine to another.

This requires accurate coordination of:

• both robot poses;
• object orientation;
• approach speed;
• vacuum release and acquisition;
• timing relative to the music;
• collision clearance.

The artistic gesture was therefore also a coordinated material-handling operation.

Why Cube Transfer Is Technically Difficult

A cube transfer appears simple to an audience because the handover lasts only a moment.

Technically, it requires several conditions to remain valid:

• the first robot must present the cube in the correct position;
• the receiving robot must approach without collision;
• the receiving suction tool must establish a stable seal;
• the first tool must release only after the second tool has acquired the object;
• both robot controllers must execute the correct sequence;
• the object must remain inside the permitted payload and inertia limits;
• failure must not allow the cube to fall toward a dancer or audience.

In industrial automation, these operations might be confirmed through sensors and PLC logic.

In performance, the same reliability is required while the transfer also needs to appear effortless and remain synchronised with the visual composition.

How the Ten Flying Cubes Moved

The stage installation included ten polystyrene-foam cubes suspended by wires.

The cubes were connected to motorised systems that changed cable length and moved them vertically and horizontally above the stage.

This created a second machine choreography alongside the six industrial robots.

The suspended system had to coordinate:

• stepper-motor movement;
• wire length;
• cube position;
• acceleration and deceleration;
• pendulum behaviour;
• projection alignment;
• clearance above dancers and robots;
• music timing.

A suspended cube does not stop instantly. Cable elasticity, inertia, air movement, and acceleration can introduce oscillation.

The visual sequence therefore had to account for both commanded position and the physical motion of the suspended object.

How Projection Mapping Followed the Cubes

The suspended cubes were covered with retroreflective material and tracked through camera analysis.

The tracking data indicated the current location of each projection surface, allowing projected imagery to be aligned with the moving cubes.

The projection workflow involved:

• detecting reflective markers or surfaces;
• estimating cube position;
• updating the projection geometry;
• rendering or warping content for the current position;
• coordinating the image with stage movement.

This process created the impression that digital imagery remained attached to physical objects while they moved through space.

Projection quality depended on:

• camera calibration;
• projector calibration;
• tracking latency;
• cube orientation;
• surface visibility;
• ambient lighting;
• occlusion by robots or dancers.

Why the Robots Were Masked Out of the Background Projection

The stage also used background projection. Uncontrolled projected light hitting the robots could have reduced their visual clarity or displayed unwanted image fragments across their bodies.

The production team generated mask images from the Maya robot-motion data.

These masks were composed into the projected background so that projected imagery avoided the predicted silhouette of each robot.

This required a relationship between:

• the robot animation;
• the physical robot pose;
• the stage camera or projector perspective;
• the rendered background imagery;
• the timing of robot movement.

If the robot deviated significantly from the expected pose, the visual mask could become misaligned.

The method worked because the robot motion was controlled and repeatable enough to support predictive visual composition.

How Human Dancers Interacted With Industrial Robots

Human–robot stage interaction does not mean that dancers simply move freely beside unrestricted industrial machinery.

The choreography must define:

• robot operating zones;
• dancer pathways;
• minimum separation distances;
• robot speed at shared moments;
• precise timing of entrances and exits;
• safe fallback positions;
• emergency-stop procedures;
• rehearsal protocols.

A dancer can adjust naturally to a small musical or spatial variation. An industrial robot continues to execute its program unless the control system tells it otherwise.

The production therefore relies on disciplined rehearsal and known machine behaviour.

The emotional impression of spontaneous interaction is created through carefully engineered predictability.

What Was Preprogrammed and What Happened in Real Time?

Robotic performance can include both preprogrammed and real-time components.

The production was therefore neither completely static nor freely autonomous. It combined predictable robot motion with real-time visual tracking and live human performance.

Why Repeatability Matters in Performance

In industrial production, repeatability supports manufacturing consistency. On stage, it supports rehearsal, timing, lighting, projection, and dancer safety.

Repeatable robot motion allows the team to:

• rehearse dancers against a known trajectory;
• design projection masks around robot positions;
• coordinate object handovers;
• build lighting cues around specific poses;
• test safety clearances;
• repeat the show for different audiences.

Repeatability does not mean the whole performance is visually mechanical.

When the movement is composed carefully, predictable execution can support complex expressive relationships that would be difficult to stage with manually controlled machinery.

Why Repeatability Is Not the Same as Timing Accuracy

A robot can return to the same position reliably while still completing a long sequence at a slightly different time.

Position repeatability and temporal synchronisation measure different things.

Timing is affected by:

• path length;
• joint velocity;
• acceleration;
• controller blending;
• payload;
• motion overrides;
• program transitions;
• communication cues.

A performance system must therefore validate both:

• where the robot will be;
• when it will be there.

Could Robots Improvise With Dancers?

A robot can respond to live tracking, motion capture, sound, or sensor input, but improvisational behaviour requires a more complex architecture than the predefined sequences used in motion.

An interactive system would need:

• reliable dancer tracking;
• real-time pose interpretation;
• rules converting human movement into robot response;
• collision prediction;
• speed and workspace limits;
• safe fallback behaviour;
• low-latency communication;
• control over unpredictable input.

The robot should not receive unrestricted dancer movement and convert it directly into full-speed industrial trajectories.

Safer approaches include:

• selecting between prevalidated movement phrases;
• modifying small parameters inside a safe range;
• using live data to affect projection rather than robot motion;
• keeping the robot inside a separated physical zone;
• reducing speed and force where the platform supports appropriate safety functions.

Real-time responsiveness does not remove the need for predesigned boundaries.

Can Industrial Robots Be Expressive?

Industrial robots can produce movement that audiences interpret as expressive.

Expression may arise from:

• speed variation;
• pauses;
• direction changes;
• symmetry and asymmetry;
• proximity to dancers;
• object manipulation;
• coordination between several machines;
• music and lighting context;
• contrast between mechanical form and human gesture.

The robot does not need to feel emotion for its movement to communicate something to an audience.

The expressive meaning is created through choreography and interpretation.

A slow inward movement may appear hesitant. A sudden coordinated extension may appear threatening or triumphant. These meanings belong to the staged context rather than to an emotional state inside the controller.

Who Authored the Robot Movement?

The robot did not author its own choreography.

Creative and technical authorship was distributed among:

• MIKIKO, who directed and choreographed the performance;
• Daito Manabe and Rhizomatiks Research, who shaped the creative and media architecture;
• Motoi Ishibashi, responsible for technical direction;
• Yaskawa specialists who translated and implemented robot movement;
• robot programmers who created executable sequences;
• dancers who embodied the human part of the composition;
• hardware and projection teams who made the stage system function.

The robot was a performing mechanism inside a collectively authored work.

Calling the robot a dancer can be useful metaphorically, but it should not conceal the people who designed, programmed, rehearsed, and operated the performance.

Why Industrial Robot Choreography Requires Engineering Discipline

A live audience sees a continuous performance. The production team sees several interdependent technical systems.

These include:

• six robot controllers;
• robot tooling and vacuum equipment;
• stage-object positioning;
• flying-cube motors and cables;
• tracking cameras;
• projectors;
• media servers;
• music playback;
• show-control cues;
• stage safety systems;
• human choreography.

A failure in one layer can affect several others.

For example:

• a cube outside its expected position can disrupt projection mapping;
• a delayed robot sequence can miss the dancer cue;
• a vacuum fault can prevent an object handover;
• a tracking failure can misalign projected imagery;
• a communication delay can break musical synchronisation.

Performance reliability requires testing the system as a whole rather than validating each technology separately.

Safety Requirements for Robots on Stage

Industrial robots can move quickly and carry substantial mass. Their use in performance introduces unusual risk because dancers, technicians, scenery, and audiences may be nearby.

The risk assessment should consider:

• robot speed and stopping distance;
• payload and end-effector mass;
• cube retention and falling-object risk;
• robot-to-robot collision;
• dancer access to the operating envelope;
• suspended-object movement;
• cable and rigging failure;
• loss of vacuum;
• incorrect show cues;
• power or communication failure;
• manual reset and recovery;
• emergency evacuation.

Possible controls include:

• fixed separation zones;
• physical barriers outside visible audience areas;
• safety scanners;
• restricted robot speed;
• validated stage marks;
• secondary retention for suspended or carried objects;
• emergency-stop stations;
• trained robot operators;
• defined start and reset procedures;
• technical rehearsals without dancers;
• full rehearsals under show conditions.

Safety principle: artistic synchronisation cannot be used as the only protection against human–robot contact.

What Happens When a Sequence Fails?

A show-control plan must define safe responses to failure.

Possible events include:

• a robot fails to reach its cue position;
• a cube is not acquired;
• vacuum pressure drops;
• a dancer misses a stage mark;
• projection tracking is lost;
• one robot stops while the others continue;
• music playback is interrupted;
• an emergency stop is activated.

The recovery plan may require:

• stopping all robot motion;
• holding the music or projection;
• moving dancers to predefined safe positions;
• removing an object manually under safe conditions;
• restarting from a recognised breakpoint;
• abandoning the affected sequence.

Complex performance systems should not depend on improvising recovery during a live failure.

Can Refurbished Industrial Robots Be Used for Choreography?

A refurbished industrial robot can potentially support stage performance, kinetic installations, and robotic choreography when its technical condition and controller capabilities match the project.

The evaluation should verify:

• the exact robot model and controller;
• mechanical condition and backlash;
• brakes, motors, encoders, and cables;
• robot mastering;
• motion quality;
• offline-programming compatibility;
• communication with show control;
• available I/O;
• payload and tool limits;
• multi-robot coordination requirements;
• safety options;
• system backups;
• spare-parts and technical support.

Performance applications expose small movement irregularities that may be irrelevant in basic handling.

For example, gearbox wear or calibration drift may produce:

• visible vibration;
• inconsistent object transfer;
• projection-mask misalignment;
• timing changes;
• unexpected differences between rehearsals.

The robot should be tested under the actual payload, speed, sequence duration, and stage conditions.

RHTS provides new and refurbished industrial robots that can be evaluated for performance, object manipulation, camera movement, kinetic installations, and creative automation.

What Are the Main Limitations of Industrial Robot Choreography?

• Robots do not feel musical rhythm. Synchronisation must be programmed and monitored.
• Animation does not guarantee executable motion. Kinematic and mechanical limits must be validated.
• Long sequences can accumulate timing drift. Breakpoints or external synchronisation may be necessary.
• Industrial robots do not improvise naturally. Real-time interaction requires additional sensing and control.
• Human proximity creates significant risk. Choreography alone is not a safety system.
• Object manipulation can fail. Vacuum, gripping, payload, and handover logic require monitoring.
• Projection depends on accurate movement. Calibration or timing errors become visible immediately.
• Several technologies must remain coordinated. Robots, music, tracking, rigging, and visuals can fail independently.
• Rehearsal requirements are substantial. Creative and technical teams must test the complete system repeatedly.
• The robot remains a programmed performer. Expressive interpretation belongs to the artistic context.

How to Evaluate an Industrial Robot Choreography Project

If timing, safety zones, payload, and recovery behaviour are undefined, selecting a robot model is premature.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Industrial Robot Choreography?

Industrial robot choreography is the design and programming of robot movement as part of a performance involving music, dancers, objects, lighting, projection, or stage automation.

What Was Yaskawa’s motion Performance?

motion was a 2015 performance created by Yaskawa Electric, Rhizomatiks Research, and ELEVENPLAY for Yaskawa’s centenary and the opening of Yaskawa Robot Village.

Which Robots Were Used?

The documented system used two Yaskawa SDA10 robots, two MH50 robots, and two MA1440 robots.

How Were the Robots Choreographed?

MIKIKO developed the choreography, robot motion was represented in Maya, and Yaskawa’s team translated and adjusted it using MotoSim and the physical robot systems.

Did the Robots Move Automatically to the Music?

No. Their movements were programmed and triggered according to the show sequence. Breakpoints were used to maintain synchronisation because execution time could vary.

How Did the Robots Hold the Cubes?

The robot wrists were equipped with air-suction tooling that allowed them to acquire, carry, and transfer lightweight cubes.

How Were the Flying Cubes Controlled?

Ten cubes were suspended by cables and moved vertically and horizontally using stepper-motor systems that changed the cable length.

How Did Projection Mapping Follow the Cubes?

Retroreflective surfaces and camera analysis provided real-time location information used to align projected imagery with the moving cubes.

Could the Robots Improvise With the Dancers?

The documented robot motion was preprogrammed. Real-time improvisation would require tracking, responsive-control rules, collision protection, and validated safety limits.

Can Refurbished Robots Be Used for Stage Performances?

Potentially, when their mechanical condition, controller, motion quality, communication, tooling, and safety systems match the performance requirements.

The Robots Did Not Learn to Dance—People Learned How to Choreograph Machines

The significance of motion does not lie in proving that industrial robots can feel music or become autonomous performers.

It lies in showing that robotic movement can become part of a sophisticated stage language when choreographers, engineers, programmers, dancers, media artists, and robot manufacturers work within one production system.

MIKIKO defined the movement. Maya made the choreography visible before execution. MotoSim helped translate it into mechanically valid paths. Yaskawa’s robots provided controlled industrial motion. Rhizomatiks connected that motion to projections, tracking, flying cubes, and music. ELEVENPLAY supplied the human physical presence against which the machines could be perceived.

The resulting performance was neither ordinary industrial automation nor conventional dance.

It was a choreographed relationship between different kinds of bodies: flexible human bodies, rigid robotic mechanisms, suspended geometric objects, and projected images.

The robots did not stop being machines. Their limits—timing, payload, repeatability, rigid joints, and programmed execution—became the material from which the choreography was built.

That is the central lesson of industrial robot choreography: expression does not require pretending that machines are human. It requires understanding their real movement deeply enough to compose with it.

Explore related applications in the Robot Art & Architecture section or read how industrial robots are used in film and live shows.

Performance companies, theatres, studios, museums, and integrators can also contact RHTS with the intended payload, movement range, robot count, stage dimensions, controller, synchronisation method, and safety requirements for an initial robotic-platform assessment.

Official Project Sources

• Rhizomatiks Research: Yaskawa × ELEVENPLAY “motion”
• Yaskawa Electric: Centenary Commemorative Productions