NTT and Dentsu let an ALS dancer perform again — brainwaves drive her live avatar ballet

NTT's Human Informatics Laboratories studies what communication can mean when speech and movement fail. Dentsu Lab's 'Project Humanity' wanted to prove that non-invasive EEG could restore agency for people in the locked-in stage of ALS — and show it through art, not specs.

Skip the tech demo: let a dancer who can no longer move choreograph and perform a live ballet through imagined hand squeezes and a brainwave avatar.

Breanna Olson wore an 18-electrode dry EEG headset; machine learning recognized her imagined hand-clench signals, letting her select words and choose avatar moves. At Amsterdam's OBA Theater on 10 Dec 2025 she directed a virtual dancer in real time, then joined her brother, former principal dancer Casey Herd, on stage.

The premiere ended in a standing ovation and earned a dedicated BBC World News feature. The work was shortlisted at Cannes Lions 2026 (Innovation), won a Bronze at Spikes Asia 2026, and pushed NTT's 'human connection' story beyond telecoms.

Breanna Olson danced professionally from childhood until an ALS diagnosis in October 2023 took her ability to move and speak. NTT, whose Human Informatics Laboratories research how people stay connected when bodies fail, and Dentsu Lab — partners in the 'All Players Welcome' and 'Project Humanity' initiatives — saw brainwaves as the last channel of will. Rather than a laboratory demo, they proposed a live ballet.

Olson wore a lightweight headset with 18 dry EEG electrodes. Machine learning detected her imagined 'clench left hand' and 'clench right hand' brain patterns, even as her signals drifted with stress and fatigue, and a word-selection UI let her give choreographic direction. On 10 December 2025 at the OBA Theater in Amsterdam, she used the same system to choose the virtual avatar's movements in real time, in a three-act piece set to Max Richter, before joining her brother, former principal dancer Casey Herd, for the final acts.

The audience rose for a standing ovation, and the project drew a dedicated BBC World News segment. It was shortlisted in the Innovation category at Cannes Lions 2026 and took a Bronze at Spikes Asia 2026, giving NTT an award-winning proof point that its R&D serves human expression.

It inverts the brief: the point is not to sell EEG specs but to let one person make art again.

Non-invasive EEG and drift-adaptive machine learning mean no surgery — a realistic route toward the locked-in state where eye-tracking fails.

The dancer co-designed the interface, so the design is shaped by the person it serves, not by the lab.

For NTT, a telecommunications brand, the human story turns research into something audiences feel and awards recognize.

Technology earns attention when it restores something human. Solve the extreme case — a person who cannot move — with dignity, and the brand's R&D becomes a story anyone can feel.

Waves of Will became the third chapter of All Players Welcome, following Japanese ALS musician MASA Muto's bio-signal live sets. Dentsu Lab says the model is now being trained with users beyond Olson, and NTT continues R&D on brainwave-controlled wheelchairs and ICT devices. The piece headlined ADFEST 2026 programming and Dentsu's Cannes Lions 2026 session, where Olson's story was shared again.