Zach Duer

Square Dance Cubed is a fusion of geometry, music, Appalachian culture, traditional dance, and Virginia Tech technology. Professional dancers and members of the public wore motion-sensor headgear while square dancing in order to communally create graphical representations of the dances in real time. Square Dance Cubed was part of the 2019 Crooked Road Tour, and was held in Moss Arts Center's Cube.

What a bizarre and wonderful mixture of tradition, technology, play, and community. Visualizing the movements of the dancers was revealing. As they go through the steps of each dance, they have a mental image of each formation, with perfect symmetry and straight lines. But, of course, the enactment is messy and inexact, which is clearly illustrated by the visualization. However, this is something to be embraced; the visual patterns of what the dancers imagined would have been quite boring and expected. Instead, we get the intricacies and idiosyncracies of each dancer and each movement as they push and pull together. Through their dance, they form a beautiful patchwork quilt of themselves.