AI-Enabled Robotic Theaters for Chinese Folk Art
Haipeng Mi, Yuan Yao, Zhihao Yao, Qirui Sun, Hanxuan Li, Mingyue Gao, B. C. Liu, Yao Lu · 2024
As an emerging stage performance style, robotic theater combines the fields of robotics and stage performance, creating a novel and immersive experience for audiences. Conversely, folk art, rich with unique cultural connotations and diverse expressions, presents new challenges to the creation of robotic theater. This chapter explores how to utilize AI-enabled techniques to craft a unique robotic theater experience specifically for Chinese folk art. Initially, the developments of robotic theaters and trends of AI techniques applied within the field are reviewed. The chapter then illustrates how AI-enabled techniques have been integrated into the creation of three robotic theaters in the context of Chinese folk art. In these practice cases, three unique performance forms of Chinese folk art – Chinese orchestra, historical stage drama, and crosstalk (Xiàngshēng) – are integrated into robotic theaters. AI-enabled techniques contribute to the theater creation in three distinct ways: i) AI-generated music provides references for the theater's creation; ii) AI-enabled voice recognition technology offers auto-segmentation for the robot's lip alignment; and iii) AI-enabled facial expression capture technique supplies initial motion data for the crosstalk performer robots. This chapter concludes by summarizing the goals and limitations of AI-enabled techniques in the creation of robotic theater and suggests ways to forge more bridges between AI techniques and robotic theater creation practice.