Happy feet: Scientists in Motion
(December 12th 2008) Can you dance interactions within a hemoglobin molecule, or demonstrate the role of Vitamin D for the function of beta-cells in a ballet? Well, some can, as scientists participating in the recent "Dance your PhD" contest showed! Melanie Estrella witnesses this cutting-edge presentation of scientific data.
The first "Dance your PhD" scientific dance contest took place in January 2008 at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. The artistic performances were captured on film and placed on the video website,'YouTube'.
A highlight of the event was definitely when Josef Penniger, Director of the affiliated Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, danced the funky chicken. His gyrations strikingly sought to implement his thesis, "Analysis of thymic nurse cells in the chicken". Penniger's colleague, Giulio Superti-Furga, Director of the Austrian Institute of Molecular Pathology, even came away as one of the contest winners with his stirring dance-à-trois for his Ph.D. on transcription factors in development and growth control.
A second version of "Dance your Ph.D." has recently emerged following a world wide appeal. Initiator of this show is John Bohannon, author of the column "The Gonzo Scientist", in "Science" magazine, which depicts felicitous crossovers of science with culture and art. At the beginning of October, Bohannon prompted his leg-shaking participants to post a video of their animated theses in 'YouTube'. Thirty-six students, postdocs. and professors accepted the invitation and let their bodies talk science.
The short clips, a few minutes long, mostly display poor quality and sparse settings, like empty dance halls, labs, living rooms or even parks, but depict the most amazing scenes. After typing "Dance your PhD" into the 'YouTube' search field, one is spoilt for choice. Take a glimpse at an ensemble dance, check out a solo performance, or instead watch a seemingly lithesome dancing couple? Choose a title from the broad range of subjects on offer, from evolution of dwarf galaxies to the analysis of the repertoire of Venetian opera buffa.
One enjoyable click is the lonely "Dance of the migrating neuron" by Jennifer Shieh, set between bench, laminar flowhood and fridge in a deserted lab. Fans of more opulent performances might enjoy Lara Parks' dance spectacle on regulation of colon carcinomas. Other interesting views offer Kyle Gustavson's grown-up ring-a-ring-a-roses interpretation of his Ph.D., "Understanding turbulence to control magnetically confined fusion". There's also "The Micortus shuffle" by Danielle Lee, grooving along a maze of boxes to outline her work on exploratory behaviour in prairie voles.
Just as the size of the cast varies greatly, so does the level of dancing, with some of the lay actors obviously spending more of their precious time off-lab in ballrooms or on dance floors than others. Nonetheless, all participants apparently enjoyed their venture a great deal. How often does one get a chance to combine one's passion for ballet, jazz dance or jigging with one's field of research other than at the final graduation ceremony (if then)?
Performances best bridging science and art were chosen by a panel of judges comprising winners of the first scientific dance contest, scientists from Harvard University, and artistic directors of the dance company, Pilobolus, for four categories: Graduate students, postdocs., professors, and popular choice as based on the highest view count. On 20th November, the best contributions were announced.
Winning graduate student was Sue Lynn Lau from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, with an amiable medley of party dance and classical ballet on the influence of vitamin D on beta-cell function. The neuroscientist Miriam Sach from the University of California in San Diego was chosen as the best performing postdoc. with her modern solo dance on processing regular and irregular verbs. Sach, just like Lau, definitely belongs to the more sophisticated dancing scientists.
More for orchestration than skilled dancing, Vince LiCata, biochemist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, won the professor category for his show on interactions within hemoglobin. LiCata staged a quartet of red suited dancers, swapping globes in aerobic manner representing hemoglobin at work. Markita Landry, an attractive half-Bolivian, half-French Canadian physics graduate student from the University of Illinois, won the popular choice prize for her Tango version of her thesis on protein TelK bending DNA into hairpin loops.
All winners were awarded for their physical assignment with yet another dance. They will be teamed up with a professional choreographer to whom they have to explain one of their publications via phone and email. The articles subsequently will be translated into one four-parted dance performance called "THIS IS SCIENCE" to be premiered in February, 2009 in Chicago at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), co-organisers of the Ph.D. dance competition. There the winners can sit back in the first row and watch their work performed by professionals on stage.
If this new kind of science presentation catches on, perhaps we may soon get more of the same: get ready for "Trumpet your journal club", "Crochet your grant application" or "Paint your annual report". Well, diversification, just like creativity, has never hurt scientific progress. And besides, a performance like "Dance your Ph.D." demonstrates one thing very clearly: Science is not exclusively quixotic nit-picking, as often supposed by non-scientists, but may also be a comprehensive source of cheerfulness!
