WonderLab Science of Art event explores technique behind dance

WonderLab’s First Friday Evening Science of Art event will take place from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Friday. The event will explore the science behind dance.

Windfall Dancers will perform on the B-Line Trail outside of the museum as well as inside WonderLab, said Andrea Oeding, assistant gallery manager for WonderLab.
Visitors can also participate in activities related to the science behind dance such as kinetics, movement and balance.

“One of them is a mobile that’s mimicked after an Alexander Calder mobile, the first person that invented mobiles,” Oeding said. “Then the second activity is a zoetrope, which is kind of a moving picture.”

Oeding said the kids will be able to draw or color pre-printed drawings of dancers that they can watch move through their zoetrope.

The Science of Art events used to take place in February, but this January, WonderLab programmers decided to sponsor the events the first Friday evening of every month, Oeding said.

This way, the event can use the nice weather during warmer seasons.
“We like that a lot better for the use of our garden space and the B-Line,”
Oeding said.

Although sometimes the science behind the art can seem hard to find, Oeding said she’s been surprised by how much the two rely on each other.

“Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how those two fields relate to each other,” Oeding said. “But in general, we’ve been surprised also by how many artists have science backgrounds and know a lot about the science behind their art. So a lot of times, it works out that they start to explain their art and they talk about science while they’re
doing it.”

The projects at the event will demonstrate the science concepts from the
artist.

Oeding said anyone is welcome to come and participate in the event and its projects. She said they try to make projects interesting enough that both young children and adults can enjoy them.

“We always hope for about 300 or 350 because it’s about as much as the museum can hold,” she said. “But more realistically, we’re hoping 200 to 250 maybe, and that would be great. But we always shoot for about 300 and try to have enough activities for about 200 people to do, knowing that not all of the parents are going to do them or not every member of the family will do them.”

Admission to the event is half the normal admission price of the museum, $3.50 per person. Members can get in for free.

Oeding said adults can get as much out of the event and projects as the kids.

“A lot of the times, it’s something they haven’t tried before, or it’s not been something they’ve tried for a while,” Oeding said. “Once you stop taking art classes in school, you might not pick up a paintbrush or a colored pencil for a while.”