WhoLoDancE: Towards a methodology for selecting Motion Capture Data across different Dance Learning Practice

<p>In this paper we present the objectives and preliminary work of WhoLoDancE a Research and Innovation Action funded under the European Union‘s Horizon 2020 programme, aiming at using new technologies for capturing and analyzing dance movement to facilitate whole-body interaction learning experiences for a variety of dance genres. Dance is a diverse and heterogeneous practice and WhoLoDancE will develop a protocol for the creation and/or selection of dance sequences drawn from different dance styles for different teaching and learning modalities. As dance learning practice lacks standardization beyond dance genres and specific schools and techniques, one of the first project challenges is to bring together a variety of dance genres and teaching practices and work towards a methodology for selecting the appropriate shots for motion capturing, to acquire kinetic material which will provide a satisfying proof of concept for Learning scenarios of particular genres. The four use cases we are investigating are 1) classical ballet, 2) contemporary dance, 3) flamenco and 4) Greek folk dance.</p

Annotating the captured dance: reflections on the role of tool-creation

The WhoLoDancE project was a three-year EU-funded project that bridges dance with research in movement computing. One of the outcomes of this project was a web-based Movement Library that includes a large number of motion-captured sequences of contemporary dance, ballet, Greek folk and flamenco, and allows the users to annotate the content by selecting predefined tags or writing new ones. During the different stages of the project, such as defining specific movement sequences to capture, developing the conceptual framework for the analysis, and designing interfaces for learning, language applied to dance was a key aspect to drive research. In this paper, we reflect on how the annotation tool and the whole process provides an instrument to study the contexts and procedures for conceptualising dance. We envision that dance annotation based on language, creates new opportunities for ethnographic and practice-based participatory research. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor &amp; Francis Group

A labanotation based ontology for representing dance movement

In this paper, we present a Knowledge Based System for describing and storing dances that takes advantage of the expressivity of Description Logics. We propose exploiting the tools of the Semantic Web Technologies in representing and archiving dance choreographies by developing a Dance Ontology in OWL-2. Description Logics allow us to express complex relations and inference rules for the domain of dance movement, while Reasoning capabilities make it easy to extract new knowledge from existing knowledge. Furthermore, we can search within the ontology based on the steps and movements of dances by writing SPARQL queries. The constructing elements of the ontology and their relationships to construct the dance model are based on the semantics of the Labanotation system, a widely applied language that uses symbols to denote dance choreographies. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Dance in the world of data and objects

In this paper, we discuss the challenges that we have faced and the solutions we have identified so far in our currently on-going effort to design and develop a Dance Information System for archiving traditional dance, one of the most significant realms of intangible cultural heritage. Our approach is based on Description Logics and aims at representing dance moves in a way that is both machine readable and human understandable to support semantic search and movement analysis. For this purpose, we are inspired by similar efforts on other cultural heritage artifacts and propose to use an ontology on dance moves (DanceOWL) that is based on the Labanotation concepts. We are thus able to represent dance movement as a synthesis of structures and sequences at different levels of conceptual abstraction, which serve the needs of different potential users, e.g., dance analysts, cultural anthropologists. We explain the rationale of this methodology, taking into account the state of the art and comparing it with similar efforts that are also in progress, outlining the similarities and differences in our respective objectives and perspectives. Finally, we describe the status of our effort and discuss the steps we intend to take next as we proceed towards the original goal. © 2013 Springer-Verlag

An XML-based Web interface to present and analyze the music aspect of dance

The present work describes a Web interface aiming at the advanced fruition of music content. This browser application, already available on the Internet, adopts the international standard known as IEEE 1599 to encode music information in XML format. The paper explores a speci c goal of the framework, namely the representation of music and dance simultaneously. The key issues are two: o ering the user an experience of dance performances based on a great variety of materials, and providing the dance student with an educational tool. The paper will provide a basic overview of the IEEE 1599 standard and will present a clarifying example from a ballet

Dance interactive learning systems: A study on interaction workflow and teaching approaches

Motion Capture and whole-body interaction technologies have been experimentally proven to contribute to the enhancement of dance learning and to the investigation of bodily knowledge, innovating at the same time the practice of dance. Designing and implementing a dance interactive learning system with the aim to achieve effective, enjoyable, and meaningful educational experiences is, however, a highly demanding interdisciplinary and complex problem. In this work, we examine the interactive dance training systems that are described in the recent bibliography, proposing a framework of the most important design parameters, which we present along with particular examples of implementations. We discuss the way that the different phases of a common workflow are designed and implemented in these systems, examining aspects such as the visualization of feedback to the learner, the movement qualities involved, the technological approaches used, as well as the general context of use and learning approaches. Our aim is to identify common patterns and areas that require further research and development toward creating more effective and meaningful digital dance learning tools. © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. All rights reserved

BalOnSe: Temporal aspects of dance movement and its ontological representation

In this paper, we propose an approach to describe the temporal aspects of ontological representation of dance movement. By nature, human movement consists of complex combinations of spatiotemporal events, a fact that creates a big challenge for representing, searching, and reasoning about movement-related content, such as movement annotations on video dances. We have defined MoveOnto, a movement ontology whose expressive power captures movements that range from body states and transitions based on the semantics of Labanotation, to generic actions or specialized vocabularies of specific dance genres, e.g., ballet or folk. We combine the ontology description with temporal reasoning in Datalog-MTL, based on temporal rules of the movement events. Finally, we present the specifications and requirements for dance exploration from a user’s perspective and describe the architecture of BalOnSe, a specific system that is currently under implementation on top of MoveOnto according to them. BalOnSe consists of a web-based application with semantic annotation, search, and browsing on the movements, as well as a backend with archival and query processing functionality based on temporal rules. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017