The Coppelia Project is inspired by the story about a clockwork girl from the 1870 ballet ‘Coppelia’ by Saint-Léon, Nuitter, and Delibes, based on a story by Hoffmann. It also draws the commonplace metaphor of clockwork music boxes, with the little ballerinas that pop up and rotate in front of a mirror when you open the lid. Coppelia is part of the traditional classical ballet repertoire and is performed frequently by ballet companies around the world. It belongs to a small group of enduring stories in Western Culture that directly address the limits of humanity when confronted by our creations. The Coppelia story is unusual in approaching this theme through love and attraction, rather than horror and revulsion, as emphasised by Mary Shelly in ‘Frankenstein’.  The Coppelia story deals with some of the issues at the edge of humanity; machines interchangeable with persons, love and attraction confused at this boundary.

The Coppelia Project has been assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts WA, The West Australian Ballet, and the many generous contributors to its Idiegogo crowd-funding campaign. See the Sponsors page for details.

The artist says; 'I have always been intrigued when watching Coppelia being performed by a ballet company - one always sees the most beautiful and graceful ballerina "hamming it up" to move like a clunky robot girl. I decided to add another layer of irony to the situation my making a robot to imitate the dancer who is imitating the robot... Of course, robots are  manufactured goods, not people, so I had to make four. From the images below, you may note an overtone of Fritz Lang's 1927 film masterpiece "Metropolis" and its heroine "Maria". I am interested in such stories about robots and automata that crossover into the human realm. The Coppelia Project is about the boundary conditions of humanity as it confronts is technological alter ego. The robots are robotic “blanks” that are energised by their programming to mimic the elegant movements of human dancers, but are imperfect in their attempts at human grace.'

Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s goal is to create automata – interactive, self-determined, expressive machines – that once set free, operate to independently explore  issues at the edge of humanity; machines interchangeable with persons, aspects of political accountability, love, and attraction in flux at this boundary. Through his practice Geoffrey combines his interest in gothic horror themes, especially Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein story, with the politics of social determination through technology, and commonplace, accessible metaphors such as clockwork music boxes, flower-pots, doorways, simple origami shapes, and portrait relief.

The artist explains further at his TEDx talk:

The next stage for the Coppelia Project is development of a hybrid ballet/electronic stage performance that blends interactive robotics and live dance performance. The work will incorporate the four “Coppelia Project” robot ballerinas and a cast of human dancers in a new ballet that extrapolates from the original 1870 production “Coppelia” to explore visual, narrative, and movement possibilities in the realm of machine / human boundaries - particularly as they pertain to the emotional imperatives of the “robot creator” and the sexual dynamics of attraction between humans and machines.

This project will encompass choreography for humans and robots dancing together, creation of sound and music to accompany such performance, and dealing with the technical, production, and staging concerns required to deliver a performance based on a blended cast of interactive robots and live dancers.

Read the Synopisis of the Coppelia Project Ballet here.

On Friday the 10th of May 2013 an event "The Coppelia Salon" was held at Geoffrey Drake-Brockman's studio in Nedlands, Western Australia as the public launch of the first Coppelia Project robot ballerina. 150 guests dressed in period costume witnessed the robot doll dance on-stage to the music of Delibes, with an introduction by dancers from the WA Conservatoire of Classic Ballet, specially choreographed by school principal Beth James. The guest of honour was Jayne Smeulders, who unveiled her robot duplicate in front of the audience. The event was recorded by a photographer from the West Australian Newspaper.