Towards a multimodal repository of expressive movement qualities in dance

In this paper, we present a new multimodal repository for the analysis of expressive movement qualities in dance. First, we discuss guidelines and methodology that we applied to create this repository. Next, the technical setup of recordings and the platform for capturing the synchronized audio-visual, physiological, and motion capture data are presented. The initial content of the repository consists of about 90 minutes of short dance performances movement sequences, and improvisations performed by four dancers, displaying three expressive qualities: Fluidity, Impulsivity, and Rigidity

An original framework for understanding human actions and body language by using deep neural networks

The evolution of both fields of Computer Vision (CV) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) has allowed the development of efficient automatic systems for the analysis of people's behaviour. By studying hand movements it is possible to recognize gestures, often used by people to communicate information in a non-verbal way. These gestures can also be used to control or interact with devices without physically touching them. In particular, sign language and semaphoric hand gestures are the two foremost areas of interest due to their importance in Human-Human Communication (HHC) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), respectively. While the processing of body movements play a key role in the action recognition and affective computing fields. The former is essential to understand how people act in an environment, while the latter tries to interpret people's emotions based on their poses and movements; both are essential tasks in many computer vision applications, including event recognition, and video surveillance. In this Ph.D. thesis, an original framework for understanding Actions and body language is presented. The framework is composed of three main modules: in the first one, a Long Short Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM-RNNs) based method for the Recognition of Sign Language and Semaphoric Hand Gestures is proposed; the second module presents a solution based on 2D skeleton and two-branch stacked LSTM-RNNs for action recognition in video sequences; finally, in the last module, a solution for basic non-acted emotion recognition by using 3D skeleton and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) is provided. The performances of RNN-LSTMs are explored in depth, due to their ability to model the long term contextual information of temporal sequences, making them suitable for analysing body movements. All the modules were tested by using challenging datasets, well known in the state of the art, showing remarkable results compared to the current literature methods

Danza movimiento terapia y abuso sexual

L'organització mundial de la salut, assenyala que la major part de les agressions sexuals tenen com a víctimes a dones i nenes, i són perpetrades per homes i nens. En alguns països, gairebé una de cada quatre dones ha estat víctima de violència sexual per part de la seva parella i fins a una tercera part de les adolescents han sofert una iniciació sexual forçada. Estudis especialitzats fan referència al percentatge de dones que han sofert alguna forma d'abús sexual abans dels 18 anys. En el mateix sentit, enquestes mundials assenyalen que entre el 10% i el 69% de les dones diuen haver estat agredides físicament per una parella masculina en algun moment de la seva vida. La violència sexual infantil provoca a les seves víctimes una sèrie de repercussions i seqüeles, psicològiques, emocionals, socials; compromet el desenvolupament integral de l'individu, i provoca l'aparició d'una sèrie de patologies a l'edat adulta. La present investigació fa una revisió teòrica de la violència sexual, de la violència de gènere, i de les aportacions del procés de recuperació a través de la dansa moviment teràpia d'aquesta població. També es mostra el recorregut del marc d'actuació dels organismes d'ordre públic de la ciutat de Barcelona per a l'atenció i detecció en casos d'abús sexualLa organización mundial de la salud, señala que la mayor parte de las agresiones sexuales tienen como víctimas a mujeres y niñas, y son perpetradas por hombres y niños. En algunos países, casi una de cada cuatro mujeres señala haber sido víctima de violencia sexual por parte de su pareja y hasta una tercera parte de las adolescentes han sufrido una iniciación sexual forzada. Estudios especializados hacen referencia del porcentaje de mujeres que han sufrido alguna forma de abuso sexual antes de los 18 años de edad. Del mismo modo, encuestas mundiales demuestran que entre el 10% y el 69% de las mujeres señalan haber sido agredidas físicamente por una pareja masculina en algún momento de sus vidas. La violencia sexual infantil devenga en sus víctimas toda una serie de repercusiones y secuelas psicológicas, emocionales, sociales; pone en compromiso el desarrollo integral del individuo, e influencia en el despliegue de una serie de patologías en la edad adulta. La presente investigación hace una revisión teórica acerca de la violencia sexual y la violencia de género, además de las aportaciones del proceso de recuperación a través de la danza movimiento terapia en esta población. Así como un recorrido del marco de actuación de los organismos de orden público de la ciudad de Barcelona para la atención y detección en casos de abuso sexualThe World Health Organization says that the majority of sexual assaults whose victims are women and girls, and is perpetrated by men and boys. In some countries, almost one in four women report having experienced sexual violence for their partner and even a third of adolescent girls report forced sexual initiation. Specialized studies relate the percentage of women who have suffered some form of sexual abuse before age 18. Similarly, global surveys show that between 10% and 69% of women having been physically assaulted for a male partner at some point in their lives. Child sexual violence on its victims accrues a number of implications and psychological, emotional and social consequences; commitments put into development of the individual, and influence on the deployment a set of pathologies in adulthood. This research makes a theoretical review about sexual violence and genre violence, in addition to the contributions the recovery process trough dance movement therapy with this population. Also show the way of the state government agencies in Barcelona handles the detection and care in cases of sexual abus

Gestos en la dirección: Comunicación de significados musicales corporeizados

Este trabajo delinea un marco de referencia conceptual para una posible correlación de patrones expresivos de música y de movimiento desde una perspectiva de segunda persona. Se desarrolla el concepto de energía musical expresada y se presentan una programación aplicada de algoritmos para computar las categorías de análisis Laban de la Eukinética (Energía) en contextos de performance musical con rol de director. A su vez, se brinda comprensión adicional sobre los modos en que se vincula esta energía musical expresada en el inter-dominio sonoro-cinético desde la perspectiva interactiva y comunicacional dada en una performance musical grupal con rol director. Estas contribuciones son potencialmente aplicables a otros contextos inter-subjetivos de performance musical y danza que posibilitarían profundizar y avanzar en el conocimiento de las vinculaciones expresivas entre los dominios de la música y del movimiento.Facultad de Bellas Arte

Analyse du contenu expressif des gestes corporels

Nowadays, researches dealing with gesture analysis suffer from a lack of unified mathematical models. On the one hand, gesture formalizations by human sciences remain purely theoretical and are not inclined to any quantification. On the other hand, the commonly used motion descriptors are generally purely intuitive, and limited to the visual aspects of the gesture. In the present work, we retain Laban Movement Analysis (LMA – originally designed for the study of dance movements) as a framework for building our own gesture descriptors, based on expressivity. Two datasets are introduced: the first one is called ORCHESTRE-3D, and is composed of pre-segmented orchestra conductors’ gestures, which have been annotated with the help of lexicon of musical emotions. The second one, HTI 2014-2015, comprises sequences of multiple daily actions. In a first experiment, we define a global feature vector based upon the expressive indices of our model and dedicated to the characterization of the whole gesture. This descriptor is used for action recognition purpose and to discriminate the different emotions of our orchestra conductors’ dataset. In a second approach, the different elements of our expressive model are used as a frame descriptor (e.g., describing the gesture at a given time). The feature space provided by such local characteristics is used to extract key poses of the motion. With the help of such poses, we obtain a per-frame sub-representation of body motions which is available for real-time action recognition purposeAujourd’hui, les recherches portant sur le geste manquent de modèles génériques. Les spécialistes du geste doivent osciller entre une formalisation excessivement conceptuelle et une description purement visuelle du mouvement. Nous reprenons les concepts développés par le chorégraphe Rudolf Laban pour l’analyse de la danse classique contemporaine, et proposons leur extension afin d’élaborer un modèle générique du geste basé sur ses éléments expressifs. Nous présentons également deux corpus de gestes 3D que nous avons constitués. Le premier, ORCHESTRE-3D, se compose de gestes pré-segmentés de chefs d’orchestre enregistrés en répétition. Son annotation à l’aide d’émotions musicales est destinée à l’étude du contenu émotionnel de la direction musicale. Le deuxième corpus, HTI 2014-2015, propose des séquences d’actions variées de la vie quotidienne. Dans une première approche de reconnaissance dite « globale », nous définissons un descripteur qui se rapporte à l’entièreté du geste. Ce type de caractérisation nous permet de discriminer diverses actions, ainsi que de reconnaître les différentes émotions musicales que portent les gestes des chefs d’orchestre de notre base ORCHESTRE-3D. Dans une seconde approche dite « dynamique », nous définissons un descripteur de trame gestuelle (e.g. défini pour tout instant du geste). Les descripteurs de trame sont utilisés des poses-clés du mouvement, de sorte à en obtenir à tout instant une représentation simplifiée et utilisable pour reconnaître des actions à la volée. Nous testons notre approche sur plusieurs bases de geste, dont notre propre corpus HTI 2014-201

Laban descriptors for gesture recognition and emotional analysis

International audienceIn this paper, we introduce a new set of 3D gesture descriptors based on the labanmovement analysis model. The proposed descriptors are used in a machine learning framework (with SVM and different random forest techniques) for both gesture recognition and emotional analysis purposes. In a first experiment, we test our expressivity model for action recognition purposes on the Microsoft Research Cambridge-12 dataset and obtain very high recognition rates (more than 97 %). In a second experiment, we test our descriptors' ability to qualify the emotional content, upon a database of pre-segmented orchestra conductors' gestures recorded in rehearsals. The results obtained show the relevance of our model which outperforms results reported in similar works on emotion recognitio

Laban descriptors for gesture recognition and emotional analysis

International audienc