The Flying Deiteis Project:An Attempt at Performing East Asian Ancient Dances in Zero Gravity Environments

Abstract

As activities in space become more common, it becomes increasingly important to examine human behavior under microgravity from the viewpoint of arts and culture. This study aims at performing dances under microgravity environment, and at making a comparison between the actual performance and what ancient people imagined it to be like dancing in such an environment. Among many cultures that have imagined celestial beings flying, this study focuses on the murals of flying deities (hiten in Japanese) in Dunhuang, China and Asuka, Japan.