MDPE.14:1 - Problem

During one performance or practice situation, several results matter together. A dancer regulates effort and balance while producing movement units, figures, phrases, partner interaction, a performance, and participation in a social event. A musician regulates an effector while shaping notes, rhythm, phrase, ensemble interaction, sound, and the whole performance. Teaching, repertoire, judging, event, and platform arrangements can constrain what is prepared and performed.

These descriptions concern different kinds of subjects: Work parts, Systems in a performing whole, slower arrangements, and representations. The recurring engineering difficulty is that project participants optimize an easy local proxy and lose another result that remains important.

Examples of the failure include:

• larger movement is called better Dance while partner information, floorcraft, safety, or participation falls;
• timing accuracy is called better Music while expressive timing, sound, or ensemble response disappears;
• higher judging reliability is called better style while one criterion or one cultural arrangement dominates;
• platform attention is called cultural success while attribution, learning, enactment, or continuation remains unknown; and
• technical feasibility is called successful practice while performer burden, consent, access, and event operation fail.

The cost can be high: performers are injured, partners stop participating, instruments or robots are pushed beyond reliable configurations, schools teach for the wrong use, competitions select brittle variants, and later development follows evidence that no longer represents the intended practice.