Choreomorphy

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Movement and Computing

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technologies offer new possibilities for studying embodied interaction with different sets of constraints and affordances for action-taking while using one's physical body. In this study, we designed and prototyped a VR dance experience, Virtual Dance Mirror, where a dancer's bodily movements are reflected on a 3D avatar model using a motion-capture suit. We investigated the novel possibilities for avatar design based on the expression of movements available for dancers in VR environment. After a preliminary briefing session, we conducted a user-study with five dancers with semi-structured interviews. Our findings support HCI literature on virtual body design to facilitate collaboration and non-verbal communication between VR users. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; Collaborative interaction; Empirical studies in interaction design.

Contemporary Choreography, 2017

Around the turn of the millennium reviewers noted that the marriage of dance and technology had produced a few significant works which startled audiences and shifted attention to what we now call digital performance. While the growth of computer-based art is an accepted phenomenon in globalized technological cultures, the genre of digital performance is still adolescent and thus in need of historical and conceptual underpinnings. 1 The more sustained lineage of dance on screen and multimedia performances which incorporate projections of screen images offers a background for understanding the compatibility between live dance and the moving image, yet the incursion of software into choreographic working process is a different matter. Digital performance, to begin, is not a screen-based medium. Rather, it is characterized by an interface structure and computational processes that are integral for composition, evolving content, aesthetic techniques, interactive configurations and delivery forms. In many instances, the integration of human-machine interfaces implies the design of interactive systems, with 3D motion sensing set ups (for example Kinect) or wearable instruments that control real-time synthesis of digital outputs. Installation architectures compete with the stage-contextual design of programmable systems becomes a new form of architecture, protocol, and bio-informatic space. In the following, I review the historical development of video-dance, motion capture, and the dance & technology movement of past decades, before addressing system design and its role in the choreographic organization of real-time interactive dance. When widely known choreographers Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones collaborated with digital artists and computer scientists (Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar, Michael Girard, Marc Downie) to create a series of dance works and installations exploring the artistic potential of motion capture technology-Hand-drawn Spaces (1998), BIPED (1999), Ghostcatching (1999), Loops (2001-2004)-reviews in Time Magazine spoke of 'hypnotic groundbreaking performances' bringing dance, the most physical of the arts, into the digital age. But motion capture-based digital graphics had Photograph 30.1 Bill T. Jones, with Paul Kaiser/Shelley Eshkar in Ghostcatching (1999). Photo courtesy of Paul Kaiser. already been widely seen in Hollywood and Hong-Kong martial arts movies, and now we await the refinements of 3D Cinema. Wim Wenders released his film homage to Pina Bausch-Pina: Dance Or We Are Lost-in 3D in 2011. When I went to see Wayne McGregor's live dance Atomos at London's Sadler's Wells (2014), I was also handed 3D glasses at the door. Digital animation is a staple of the film industry, television advertising, MTV, clubhouse VJ'ing, and games design. Tight choreographic operations mixing live and prerecorded video projections are commonplace at rock concerts. The question of what is groundbreaking in the coupling of dance and technology, therefore, must be examined carefully before we make rash claims. Kinetic Camera Connections Video cameras play a dramaturgic role in theatre productions. Some directors (Frank Castorf, Katie Mitchell, Robert Lepage and so on) have perfected the use of onstage camera crews, as did the Wooster Group, Rimini Protokoll, the Builders Association and others in their intermedial performances. The same tendency to 'audio-visualize' music theatre and composition is seen in contemporary opera and sonic art. William Kentridge's animated drawings/films for opera productions (The Nose; Lulu) are fascinating examples of projection techniques using layering and silhouettes. Kentridge also worked with Handspring Puppet Company-I am tempted to think that the use of video animation in theatre belongs to the conceptual tradition of the Übermarionette (Kleist). Yet the role of the physical body and the limits of physical presence vis à vis camera and computer software have become important theoretical issues for discussions of technological embodiment, not to speak of virtual realms of cybertheatre (Giannachi 2004; Parker-Starbuck 2011). Immersive techniques of improvisation inside systems-and how their kinaesthetic experience affects us-constitute major artistic concern. It is important for the field to worry about integrating such expanded notions of choreography and software design/system architecture. Choreographing for the camera became a challenge early in the 20 th century as the motion picture industry evolved. Video-dance is now established, having moved from analog ancestors to digital successors, from Maya Deren's path-breaking A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) to work of younger generations of video makers. At the 2005 Digital Cultures festival, a program of video-dance ('Motion at the Edge') persuasively reflected the aesthetic genres with which choreographer-filmmakers work today, ranging from the poetic to the documentary, the ethnographic to the abstractexperimental, plus various crossovers between video, dance and performance art. 2 All

Body, Space & Technology

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2013

A novel interface for the real-time control of interactive visuals through full body dance movements is designed with a specific focus on the notion of movement qualities (the manner in which the movement is executed). The system can recognize predefined movement qualities through gesture analysis. It also allows for the control of abstract visuals based on physical models, specifically mass-springs models, displaying graphical animations with "qualities" reflecting the participants' expressions.

2022

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the verb to morph as "to gradually change, or change someone or something, from one thing to another". According to the German Duden dictionary, morphing is a process associated with a computer programme that changes an image smoothly – in a perceptible manner without abrupt transitions – in such a way that a completely new image is created. This technique is used in imaging processes in the natural sciences and medicine, but above all in gaming and art – and also in the disciplines of video and dance, and their media transformations. Although morphing is perceived as fluid, Ann Rigney describes its functions with metaphors that imagine certain culmination points: Relay Stations, Stabilizers, Catalysts, Calibrators. Moreover, morphing is post-anthropomorphic and transsexual. The field of investigation focused on in the following will be the points of contact or intersection between dance and video. There is no intention to intervene in theoretical debates about 'medialisation'; instead, the respective artistic practices of Jacolby Satterwhite and Hito Steyerl will be examined as examples.

2015

The research which is embedded in this thesis through the dances and the context statement is about my experience of dancing and dance-making. During the process of making dances there is a sense of messiness in not knowing what is emerging. In the process of writing this document I have had to shift my experience in order to perceive the messiness and to reflect on how I work with it.

Conference Proceedings: Dance Rebooted: Intializing the Grid. Ausdance National ISBN 1 875244 16 8, 2005

My paper presents findings from an action research project focussing on a series of creative dance workshops. The key question of this research is; How may the collaborative choreographic process effect the participant’s sense of identity as dancer? Theoretical issues that are explored include a philosophical examination of cognition during the choreographic process as is related to educational value and also how the process of choreography itself, is research. Subtexts reflect on how this specific action research process may indirectly inform issues of sustainability of dance research, of dance education and of dance as a theatre art.

From Humans That Move Like Machines to Machines That Move Like Humans:A Multidisciplinary Review of the State of the Art in the Digitization of the Dancing Body, 2023

The heightened circulation of digital renditions of dance and their reincorporation back into human bodies reveals a kind of permeability of cross-pollinating forces dialoguing fundamentally through gesture. The tensions, digressions, and reformulations of what movement means in the digital era have spawned discourses and innovations that need to be tackled through multiple disciplines, namely the computer sciences, the humanities, and the law, all ofwhich have been considered for this study. First, we offer a review of what are currently the most prominent initiatives in the digital safeguarding of dance and movement globally, seen in tandem with the latest developments in the field of computerized movement recognition in the following section. We then examine the most salient criticisms from the humanities surrounding the digitization of human movement, which we follow with a compilation of relevant jurisprudence of conflicts dealing with the dancingbody‘s merging with the digital. The purpose of this survey is to assist readers and practitioners in positioning their own projects related to the digitization of dance within a thriving field and suggest potential conceptual refigurations that such advances might produce to better grasp the leakages between humans and machines

In the world of dance and its related disciplines, the ability of a performer to successfully 'move' audience members enough to elicit an emotional reaction is vital. Certain factors such as the proximity of audience to performer and viewing a performance in real-time affect how this effect is achieved. When dance movement is digitised through moving image or animation, there is potential for loss in translation of the emotional feeling experienced during a live performance versus recorded live performance or animated performance. Conversely, a heightened sensation might occur through the use of cinematography, editing and special effects. This translation issue may be encountered when creating a virtual reality animation dance using motion capture since the technologies involved can both interfere or enhance the presentation of movement. Assuming that human essence needs to be captured along with physical motion in order to generate an emotional reaction, then the choreography and motion capture data become the 'ghost' that is transplanted from human into a new digital body. This separation then raises the question of how to maintain the subtleties required for communication that lead to generating empathy in viewers for a virtual performer's narrative. To address these issues, I engaged in a series of dance motion capture sessions for a virtual narrative about mental health as the basis for examining how a choreographer and motion capture dancer can work with the limitations of technology, rather than be limited, to produce useful data. Specific limitations included use of contemporary and somatic dance, a relatively low number of cameras and dots, no facial or hand data and the use of abstract humanoid figures. Although a universally applicable solution was not discovered, I was able to identify a set of strategies that would be useful to contemporary dance choreographers using motion capture technology for the first time. Furthermore, the strategies are intended for movement narratives rooted in portraying emotion rather than physical spectacle dependent on virtuosity and visual effects.