Industrial robots may be bulky and dangerous, but who says they can’t dance? Watch this roboLounge tribute to Daft Punk by four Stäubli robotic arms. Synchrony is their strong suit!

These robotic strippers below have recently caused quite a stir following their appearance at this year’s CeBIT computer expo in Hanover, Germany. Tess and Lexy – yes, they have names – were developed by the German company Tobit Software in collaboration with the British artist Giles Walker.

Here is another “pole-dancing” robot, although the pole in this case is fixed to a mirror and serves to support the robot, which was part of a New York-based art installation created by the designer Jordan Wolfson. While some may find it sexy and others downright horrifying, we must admit that the movements of the robot – especially of the hands – are smooth enough to be rather convincing from a short distance.

Partner Ballroom Dance Robot (PBDR) was developed by Kazuhiro Kosuge, a bioengineering and robotics professor at Tohoku University. This elegant robot has sensors that allow it to predict its partners next move.

Travis, a smartphone speaker dock developed by Guy Hoffman, is a listening companion that will readily enjoy music with your. Travis can recognise different sound genres and adapt his dancing style accordingly. You can read a previous post to learn about other “robots with soul” by Guy Hoffman.

The video below is the result of an interesting study that explores the possibility of a gestural dialogue between two robotic performers and a human dancer. If the robotic arms in the video look familiar, you are not hallucinating: these are two UR10 robotic arms from Universal Robots, a Danish Manufacturer of collaborative industrial robots.

iCub was the protagonist of the live musical performance “Dancing with Robots“, which was organised by the eeFA project as part of the Living Machines 2013 conference at the Natural History Museum in London. Read this post for a detailed overview of the conference.

Although Nao from Aldebaran Robotics was not designed as a dancing robot per se, part of his fame comes from his dancing skills. Check out this beautifully orchestrated performance by several Nao robots.

This impressive performance by Sony QRIO robots was recorded back in 2005. Too bad these robots were never commercialised. Wouldn’t you like to have your own dancing companion?