Interactive Fan Dance: Towards a Community-Informed, Culturally Situated Interactive Dance Instrument

Jason Gao, Shirley Nguyen, Alexandria Smith, and Brian Magerko

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Interactive Dance literature is dominated by instruments centered around contemporary dance, and to a lesser extent, ballet. This paper provides an alternative perspective of culturally situated, community-informed NIME design through interviews with 18 practitioners of Chinese and Vietnamese fan dance, examining how dancers negotiate traditional identity and culture in their practice. From these insights, we propose a conceptual framework that places fan dance as a living, highly contextual, and social practice. This framework provides the foundation for initial explorations of a culturally situated interactive dance interface, investigating how NIMEs can be embedded within existing intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

Citation

Jason Gao, Shirley Nguyen, Alexandria Smith, and Brian Magerko. 2026. Interactive Fan Dance: Towards a Community-Informed, Culturally Situated Interactive Dance Instrument . Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784137 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_40,
 abstract = {Interactive Dance literature is dominated by instruments centered around contemporary dance, and to a lesser extent, ballet. This paper provides an alternative perspective of culturally situated, community-informed NIME design through interviews with 18 practitioners of Chinese and Vietnamese fan dance, examining how dancers negotiate traditional identity and culture in their practice. From these insights, we propose a conceptual framework that places fan dance as a living, highly contextual, and social practice. This framework provides the foundation for initial explorations of a culturally situated interactive dance interface, investigating how NIMEs can be embedded within existing intangible cultural heritage (ICH).},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {40},
 author = {Jason Gao and Shirley Nguyen and Alexandria Smith and Brian Magerko},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784137},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {9},
 pages = {342--350},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/pXJBmwr2S2s},
 title = {Interactive Fan Dance: Towards a Community-Informed, Culturally Situated Interactive Dance Instrument },
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_40.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}