Author, dancer, and choreographer Jeanne Robinson, who may have created the concept of zero-g dance, has finally had the opportunity to attempt to create her new art form in the real world. The first attempts at “Stardance” were carried out aboard a Zero G Corporation airplane flying parabolas over Las Vegas on 30 December 2007.
Robinson, along with Producer James Sposto, dancer Kathleen McDonagh, and several others, flew for several hours over the Las Vegas desert, trying out in the real world what until then had only been thought experiments. Reporting after the flight, Robinson said “a lot of our plans went right out the window in the first few weightless arcs. But we’d anticipated that, and were able to just do what we could and adapt as well as possible to circumstances. Kathleen said the tendency to drift changed everything. You never knew whether you were liable to find yourself moving left, right, up or down, or some combination thereof. In her next breath, she said she looks forward to working with this more, now that she’s had some experience of it and knows what to expect. It’s a challenge, but one she found enjoyable. Dancers love physical challenges. The first few arcs we just enjoyed ourselves, and I had the greatest of times imaginable. After that, I was just so busy I barely had time to register how I was feeling.”
Robinson, along with her husband, author Spider Robinson, are posting blog entries, and have some raw footage available, on stardancemovie.blogspot.com.
The concept of zero-g dance was first detailed in Spider and Jeanne’s 1977 novella “Stardance,” which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and was expanded into the novels Stardance of novels: Stardance (1979), Starseed (1991), and Starmind (1995).