June 9, 2006

Dancing in the Second Life Virtual World

I keep meaning to experiment with the Second Life virtual world.

Now with the growth in dancing in this alternative reality, I have more of an incentive to make an avatar for myself and start wondering around and going to clubs, get-togethers and, even, dance studio. This notice caught my attention:

This past Tuesday, the Takeshi's Dance Studio in Second Life held an event to teach people how to dance. Plus, they will soon be building a theater and they need dancers.

Since I haven't used Second Life, I only have a vague idea what it means to dance in SL. My guess is that users who went to Takeshi's Dance Studio learned how to write scripts so that their avatars could automatically perform a series of pre-programmed moves. I'm going to follow-up with Takeshi's Dance Studio to find out more.

In the meantime, I came across some interesting stories and pictures that offer a glimpse of the type of dancing that is now taking place in SL:

- Here are some pictures on Flickr that show examples of Second Life dancing:

- In Linden Lifestyles (Linden is the creator of Second Life), there is an article, "Concert Tips and Etiquette," that explains how to participate in SL music concerts - how, for instance, to listen to musicians and not be bothered by extraneous sounds. If you scroll down this article, you'll find a section that explains the concept of dance animators and dance balls. If an avatar couple steps on a dance ball and then activates the dance animator, their avatars will then be taken through a pre-determined series of dance steps. Here's a screen shot of a dance floor in an SL nightclub:

- Dancing doesn't just take place in virtual clubs. Events on private islands also feature music and dancing. Earlier this year, Creative Commons hosted a party. There are more pictures available with the write-up about this event:

- In "Get That Out of Your Mouth #24 - The Show Must Go Online," Chris Dahlen describes the experience of listening to music in Second Life, how indie bands take virtual tours and make money, and the limitations of gestures and dance in this virtual world:

Players also can't control their avatars with any spontaneity or nuance; if you want to dance at a show, you can trigger an animation that runs your avatar through the steps, but you can't personally step in to make the arm rest on your partner's back just so. The same problem applies for performers. If you look closely at Few as he's playing guitar, you'll see that he can't strum or move his hand on the fretboard, and his face is trapped in a stiff mask, like a dummy in a vintage Disney World ride. And while you can add more animations and poses to an avatar, if you have the time and you're handy with 3-D modeling software, you can't make the spur-of-the-moment gestures that even stiff indie rockers need to liven up their acts.

- And Rik Riel (his SL name) in his "Dancing with myself... with other people " post, says that he goes to a lot of SL events and music gigs. He describes how dancing works:

In Second Life, you are given a small set of pre-defined dance animations that you can trigger from your keyboard. It's easy to pick up other animations at parties or from friends. You can easily perform everything from a waltz to b-boying to country two-step (not to mention more, uh, provocative dancing).

But he's not really sold on this virtual dancing:

A real basic question is Why would you do this? Virtual dancing provides none of the perks of real world dancing, either the joy of movement, the physical response to music you are digging, the pleasure in touching another person, or the pride of executing a difficult move. There's no learning curve, no physical exertion, no effort to anything, except maybe the effort involved in designing your own custom animations.

I've been dancing my whole life, from all of the terrible 80's trends (smurf, running man, pac man, etc.) to popping and locking, salsa, tap, and now lindy hop. There are few other moments when I am happier than when I am dancing. There is nothing to compare to sharing great music with someone you care for swaying in your arms. I love dancing so much, I help administer the largest lindy hop community website on the net, Yehoodi.com.

Rik Riel adds this picture from Flickr to reinforce his point:

Trackback Pings

2 Comments