--- title: "Coffin Dance (Ghanaian Dancing Pallbearers) · Fly Brain Experiment" url: https://theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance/ description: "The fly is the front-right of six fly pallbearers who dance a closed coffin through a roadside funeral in the manner of Ghana's dancing pallbearers: shoulder…" language: en --- # Coffin Dance (Ghanaian Dancing Pallbearers) The fly is the front-right of six fly pallbearers who dance a closed coffin through a roadside funeral in the manner of Ghana's dancing pallbearers: shoulder bounce, step and sway, a full coffin turn, an overhead lift, the dip and a final pose. **An eight-second loop from the workstation. Full recording pending publication.** [Follow along](#recordings) for the release. Meanwhile, [run it in your browser](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance/run/). ## What the fly saw Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment. ![Eye-camera frame at 0:18](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-0.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 0:18](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-0-retina.png) 0:18 The pallbearers dance in ![Eye-camera frame at 0:48](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-1.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 0:48](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-1-retina.png) 0:48 Step and sway ![Eye-camera frame at 1:18](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-2.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 1:18](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-2-retina.png) 1:18 Overhead lift ![Eye-camera frame at 1:48](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-3.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 1:48](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/coffin-dance-3-retina.png) 1:48 On to the burial ground **Interactive preview.** Run this experiment in your browser with its cameras, the compound-eye inspector, wireframe views and a simulated neural panel. [Run in browser](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance/run/) ## Timeline 9 steps, with their times in the experiment 1. 0:00 **Funeral morning by the road** Mourners in black and in red-and-black cloth gather beneath the canopies of a roadside funeral; in Ghana a funeral celebrates a life. With the meme intro on, a passer-by first slips on a banana peel and lands, unhurt, in a vendor’s heap of cushions. 2. 0:12 **The pallbearers dance in** Six pallbearers in black suits, white gloves, caps and dark glasses carry the closed coffin on their shoulders down the road, stepping in time. 3. 0:26 **Shoulder bounce** In place, the bearers bend and rise on every beat, the coffin bouncing on their shoulders while their free forelegs swing together. 4. 0:42 **Step and sway** The six step side to side in unison; the coffin rocks gently as they sway. 5. 0:58 **The coffin turn** Keeping the coffin level on their shoulders, the bearers walk it through a full circle around its centre. 6. 1:12 **Overhead lift** All six raise the coffin above their heads on outstretched forelegs, hold it, and bring it back to their shoulders. 7. 1:24 **The dip** The bearers sink low together, the coffin dropping with them, and rise again on the beat. 8. 1:36 **Stop and pose** A sudden stop: the six freeze, turn their heads toward the mourners and hold a pose before moving again. 9. 1:46 **On to the burial ground** The pallbearers dance the coffin on down the road; mourners wave white handkerchiefs and follow. ## Setup - Nine stages over 120 s: funeral morning by the road, the pallbearers dance in, shoulder bounce, step and sway, the coffin turn, overhead lift, the dip, stop and pose, and on to the burial ground. - The six pallbearers wear black suits, white gloves, caps and dark glasses and carry a glossy wine-red coffin with gold trim and a kente-pattern sash; their inner forelegs grip its underside by inverse kinematics. - Up to 72 instanced mourners in black and red-and-black cloth sit under striped canopies or line a roadside modeled on a coastal Greater Accra town, not a survey of Prampram; a mourner with a white handkerchief and a master of ceremonies are further flies. - In Ghana a funeral is a large public occasion that honours and celebrates a life, and dancing pallbearers are one option a family may choose; Benjamin Aidoo's Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service of Prampram, founded in 2003, became the worldwide "coffin dance" meme in 2020. - Controls: routine (the full sequence, or one routine repeated in stages 3–8), dance tempo 80–140 bpm (default 118), and an optional meme intro, off by default, in which a passer-by slips on a banana peel into a vendor's heap of cushions, unhurt. No music or audio is played. - Cameras include Director / auto, Street / wide, Pallbearers / follow, Coffin / low angle, Mourners' view, Pallbearer / POV, Cushion stall and Above / formation. ## Measurement - Retinal-only input: the eye camera looks along the fly's own heading with no roll, so the retina receives the real optic flow of its pre-programmed bouncing and turning. - Each live window renders ten 20 ms frames; measured readouts are HS + H2 (rotation), VS (vertical motion) and EPG (heading). - All dancing, walking, lifting and mourner movement are pre-programmed functions of scene time and the saved controls; nothing is closed-loop. - In a test, turning changed the retinal columns far more than a frozen pose (about 0.43 versus 0.006 mean change per 20 ms). ## Limitations - The readouts are model responses to the retinal image only, not a model of rhythm, grief or celebration; weights are fixed and nothing is learned. - The routines, roadside and coffin are approximations, not a copy of any recorded funeral; real troupes' uniforms vary. - The meme's soundtrack and footage are not used, and the coffin is never dropped. ## Sources - [BBC News (2017), Ghana's dancing pallbearers bring funeral joy](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-40716576/ghana-s-dancing-pallbearers-bring-funeral-joy) - [Dancing Pallbearers (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Pallbearers) - [VICE, The True Story Behind Ghana's Viral Coffin Dancers](https://www.vice.com/en/article/coffin-dance-dancing-pallbearers-meme) - [Cooper Hewitt, Adinkra: Message and Medium (funeral cloth colors)](https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/09/07/adinkra-message-and-medium/) ## About The fly is the front-right of six fly pallbearers who dance a closed coffin through a roadside funeral in the manner of Ghana's dancing pallbearers: shoulder bounce, step and sway, a full coffin turn, an overhead lift, the dip and a final pose. [theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance/) [film-and-media](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/film-and-media/) [drosophila](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [connectome](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [malecns](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [specimen-237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) [browser-preview](https://theflybrain.com/try/) - Subject [Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) - Readme - MaleCNS data · CC BY 4.0 - Views not yet tallied - Duration **120 s** - Stages **9** - Pallbearers **6** - Mourners **Up to 72 instanced** - Tempo **80–140 bpm (default 118)** ## Recordings No recordings published yet. - [Follow on YouTube](https://youtube.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on TikTok](https://tiktok.com/@paranoidamerica) - [Follow on Instagram](https://instagram.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on X](https://x.com/paranoidamerica) ## Packages [workstation source](https://www.patreon.com/cw/ParanoidAmerican/membership)Included for Research Associates · [setup guide](https://theflybrain.com/workstation/setup/) ## Credits 2 [![Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/images/specimen-237.jpg)](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) [PA](https://paranoidamerican.com) Official Experiment ## Notes - Setup35% - Measurement24% - Limitations18% - Sources24% ## Share [X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Coffin%20Dance%20(Ghanaian%20Dancing%20Pallbearers)%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fcoffin-dance%2F) [Threads](https://www.threads.net/intent/post?text=Coffin%20Dance%20(Ghanaian%20Dancing%20Pallbearers)%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain%20https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fcoffin-dance%2F) [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fcoffin-dance%2F) ## Embed Put the browser preview on your own site. ## Commission one Want the fly to do something else? 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[Commission an Experiment · $237](https://paranoidamerican.com/products/custom-fly-brain-experiment) ## More in Film & media [All 14](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/film-and-media/) - [![Media Observation: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/movie.jpg)0001**Media Observation**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/movie/) - [![Eyes Wide Shut: The Masked Ceremony: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/eyes-wide-shut.jpg)0022**Eyes Wide Shut: The Masked Ceremony**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/eyes-wide-shut/) - [![The Monolith: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/monolith.jpg)0023**The Monolith**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/monolith/) - [![Fly Dance Class: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/twerk.jpg)0024**Fly Dance Class**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/twerk/) [Previous0076-dancing-plague](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/dancing-plague/) --- Source: https://theflybrain.com/experiments/coffin-dance/ · TheFlyBrain (theflybrain.com) · Site summary for language models: https://theflybrain.com/llms.txt