Motion Capturing Emotions

The paper explores the activities conducted as part of WhoLoDancE: Whole Body Interaction Learning for Dance Education which is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project. In particular, we discuss the motion capture sessions that took place at Motek, Amsterdam as well as the dancers’ experience of being captured and watching themselves or others as varying visual representations through the HoloLens. HoloLens is Microsoft’s first holographic computer that you wear as you would a pair of glasses. The study embraced four dance genres: Ballet, Contemporary, Flamenco and Greek Folk dance. We are specifically interested in the kinesthetic and emotional engagement with the moving body and what new corporeal awareness may be experienced. Positioning the moving, dancing body as fundamental to technological advancements, we discuss the importance of considering the dancer’s experience in the real and virtual space. Some of the artists involved in the project have offered their experiences, which are included, and they form the basis of the discussion. In addition, we discuss the affect of immersive environments, how these environments expand reality and what effect (emotionally and otherwise) that has on the body. The research reveals insights into relationships between emotion, movement and technology and what new sensorial knowledge this evokes for the dancer

Virtual Reality and Choreographic Practice:The Potential for New Creative Methods

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming an increasingly intriguing space for dancers and choreographers. Choreographers may find new possibility emerging in using virtual reality to create movement and the WhoLoDancE: Whole-Body Interaction Learning for Dance Education project is developing tools to assist in this process. The interdisciplinary team which includes dancers, choreographers, educators, artists, coders, technologists and system architects have collaborated in engaging, discussing, analysing, testing and working with end-users to help with thinking about the issues that emerge in the creation of these tools. The paper sets out to explore the creative potential of VR in the context of WhoLoDancE and how this may offer new insights for the choreographer and dancer. We pay attention to the virtual environment, the virtual performance and the virtual dancer as some of the key components for equipping the choreographer to use in the creating process and to inform the dancing body. The cyclical process of live body to virtual, back to the dancing body as a choreographic device is an innovative way to approach practice. This approach may lead to new insights and innovations in choreographic methods that may extend beyond the project and ultimately take dance performance in a new direction