NTT and Dentsu let a ballerina with ALS dance again by decoding her brainwaves

Breanna Olson trained in ballet, contemporary and jazz from childhood, but a diagnosis of ALS — the most common motor neurone disease — was steadily taking her muscles, with no cure to stop it. Assistive tech for dance barely exists: exoskeletons restore walking, not artistry.

Dentsu Lab Tokyo and NTT’s Human Informatics Laboratories took a different route with Waves of Will: an EEG headset that reads Breanna’s motor imagery. She imagines particular movements; the decoder maps those brainwave patterns to computer instructions; a mixed-reality avatar on stage dances them in real time. She choreographs by thought.

In December 2025 she performed at the OBA Theatre in Amsterdam — guiding the avatar alongside able-bodied dancers and receiving a standing ovation. It was described at the time as the first performance of its kind: a live stage show steered by a single dancer’s decoded brain activity.

The work was shortlisted for a 2026 Cannes Innovation Lion, credited to Dentsu Inc. Tokyo and NTT Human Informatics Laboratories, and Breanna told the BBC the experience re-established expression and connection the disease had eroded — and that the technology “definitely has a place for those with disabilities”.

Decode intent, not limbs — let will drive an avatar

Motor imagery — imagining movement — still produces readable EEG signals, so intent survives even when muscles no longer obey.

An avatar removes the physics problem: no exoskeleton can safely reproduce ballet, but a virtual body has no constraints.

Staging the system live in a theatre proved the decoding works in real time in front of an audience, not only in a lab.

For NTT the performance doubles as the product demo: human-informatics research shown as human potential rather than spec sheets.

When a capability’s hardware fails, look for what still works — here, intent — and route it to a new actuator. Exoskeletons fight the body’s physics; decoupling will from body needs no restoration.

Breanna Olson has continued to advocate for brainwave interfaces as an expressive tool for disabled people, and the project stands as NTT and Dentsu Lab’s flagship demonstration of human-centered R&D. The 2026 Cannes Innovation shortlist put the engineering in front of the industry’s technical juries, and the BBC’s coverage introduced the approach to a mainstream audience alongside other brain-interface work such as Neuralink’s implant.