He looks like an animation character wearing a visor, shuffled its gray metal feet and waved its hands in the air in sync with a woman in a kimono. Japanese researchers said they had turned

　　Japanese researchers said they had turned a humanoid industrial machine into a master of Japanese traditional dance in a bid to use a robot as a guardian of cultural heritage.

　　The 1.5-meter-tall (five-foot) robot HRP-2 Promet, which looks like an animation character wearing a visor, shuffled its gray metal feet and waved its hands in the air in sync with a woman in a kimono.

　　Katsushi Ikeuchi, a professor of engineering at Tokyo University, said the robot, which is usually used at construction sites, was taught traditional Japanese dance to preserve the art for the future.

　　The slow-paced dance, which is performed in-groups and accompanied by lutes and other Japanese instruments, is rapidly losing ground in 21st-century Japan, with many young people only encountering it at local festivals.

　　HRP-2 Promet was created in 2003. Priced at 38 million yen (365,000 dollars), it can help workers at construction sites and can also drive a car.