Interactive dance choreography assistance

Creative support for the performing arts is prevalent in many fields, however, for the art of dance, automated tools supporting creativity have been scarce. In this research, we describe ongoing research into (semi)automatic automated creative choreography support. Based on state-of-the-art and a survey among 54 choreographers we establish functionalities and requirements for a choreography assistance tool, including the semantic levels at which it should operate and communicate with the end-users. We describe a user study with a prototype tool which presents choreography alternatives using various simple strategies in three dance styles. The results show that the needs for such a tool vary based on the dance discipline. In a second user study, we investigate various methods of presenting choreography variations. Here, we evaluate four presentation methods: textual descriptions, 2D animations, 3D animations and auditory instructions in two different dance styles. The outcome of the expert survey shows that the tool is effective in communicating the variations to the experts and that they express a preference for 3D animations. Based on these results, we propose a design for an interactive dance choreography assistant tool

Accented Body and Beyond: a Model for Practice-Led Research with Multiple Theory/Practice Outcomes

Dance has always been a collaborative or interdisciplinary practice normally associated with music or sound and visual arts/design. Recent developments with technology have introduced additional layers of interdisciplinary work to include live and virtual forms in the expansion of what Fraleigh (1999:11) terms ‘the dancer oriented in time/space, somatically alive to the experience of moving’. This already multi-sensory experience and knowledge of the dancer is now layered with other kinds of space/time and kinetic awarenesses, both present and distant, through telematic presence, generative systems and/or sensors. In this world of altered perceptions and ways of being, the field of dance research is further opened up to alternative processes of inquiry, both theoretically and in practice, and importantly in the spaces between the two

Dancing in the Streets - a design case study

How do you transform a city center at night to enhance the experience of residents and visitors and to combat the public’s fears over safety and security after dark? This challenge was set by the York City Council’s “Renaissance Project: Illuminating York,” and we took them up on it. We made it our goal to get pedestrians to engage with our interactive light installation—and to get them dancing without even realizing it. People out shopping or on their way to restaurants and nightclubs found themselves followed by ghostly footprints, chased by brightly colored butterflies, playing football with balls of light, or linked together by a “cat’s cradle” of colored lines. As they moved within the light projections, participants found that they were literally dancing in the street

Synesthetic art through 3-D projection: The requirements of a computer-based supermedium

A computer-based form of multimedia art is proposed that uses the computer to fuse aspects of painting, sculpture, dance, music, film, and other media into a one-to-one synthesia of image and sound for spatially synchronous 3-D projection. Called synesthetic art, this conversion of many varied media into an aesthetically unitary experience determines the character and requirements of the system and its software. During the start-up phase, computer stereographic systems are unsuitable for software development. Eventually, a new type of illusory-projective supermedium will be required to achieve the needed combination of large-format projection and convincing real life presence, and to handle the vast amount of 3-D visual and acoustic information required. The influence of the concept on the author's research and creative work is illustrated through two examples

Towards a Multimedia Implementation of an NPComplete Dance Choreography Problem

The Dance Choreography problem is NPComplete.To solve non-trivial instances of such problems,heuristic algorithms are required, which we haveimplemented in our software we call Terpsichore©. Thesoftware creates amalgamations using figures fromestablished International Standard Ballroom Dancesyllabi, as well as our own proprietary syllabus. Amultimedia-based interface provides various coaching andteaching modules, delivered in a natural, human-likemanner

Symbiosis in digital performance: the relationship between interactive technologies and improvisational choreography

Within Australian live performance, there is a rising number of works relying on digital media technologies to shape their scenographic environments. Situated in this field of digital performance, this paper examines the relationship between two subsets of digital scenography and dance: interactive digital technologies and improvisational choreography. While there are a number of perspectives that consider the role and impact of digital technologies within this specific field, many focus on the dancer or choreographer rather than the designer/technologist. The concept of symbiosis offers an alternative framework to understand the relationship between interactive digital technologies and improvisational choreography, and has potential to provide agency to the designer/technologist within the collaborative process. Symbiosis is understood as a mutually beneficial relationship between two separate and different systems that come together to achieve a shared goal. While the concept of symbiosis appears in some existing discussions in this field, critics have yet to identify specific points of symbiosis between the two forms. Drawing on a critical examination of existing theory and reflection on practice arising from two creative developments, three points of symbiosis are proposed here: open/closed scores and open/closed systems, real-time interactivity and composition, and technology as performance. The paper offers symbiosis as a way to reconsider the relationship between technology and dance, as it shifts the role of technology from merely an addition to the performance to that of mutual co-creator, and affords the designer/technologist a greater sense of agency in their practice

Beyond Movement an Animal, Beyond an Animal the Sound

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Sensing and mapping for interactive performance

This paper describes a trans-domain mapping (TDM) framework for translating meaningful activities from one creative domain onto another. The multi-disciplinary framework is designed to facilitate an intuitive and non-intrusive interactive multimedia performance interface that offers the users or performers real-time control of multimedia events using their physical movements. It is intended to be a highly dynamic real-time performance tool, sensing and tracking activities and changes, in order to provide interactive multimedia performances. From a straightforward definition of the TDM framework, this paper reports several implementations and multi-disciplinary collaborative projects using the proposed framework, including a motion and colour-sensitive system, a sensor-based system for triggering musical events, and a distributed multimedia server for audio mapping of a real-time face tracker, and discusses different aspects of mapping strategies in their context. Plausible future directions, developments and exploration with the proposed framework, including stage augmenta tion, virtual and augmented reality, which involve sensing and mapping of physical and non-physical changes onto multimedia control events, are discussed

Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard

Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard Catalogue published on the occasion of the 2018 - 2019 exhibition, Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, organized by the Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY. This exhibition project and catalogue were supported by a generous grant from the Creative Motif Fund. Mutual Muses is a two-person exhibition showcasing works by James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, who have been working together as well as individually since the 1960s. Their lives and practice have inspired each other throughout their careers. This exhibition is an interwoven love story featuring individual works by Seawright and Garrard as well as ones inspired by the other and those created collaboratively. Their life of interconnectivity as mutual muses is beautifully explored and presented in this survey exhibition