"Body Navigation" Dance Installation and Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth"
"Body Navigation," from the Recoil Performance Group, is an interactive dance installation that was part of Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth" performance, which premiered this past May in Copenhagen:
Body Navigation is based on responsive digital media that allows for the dancers to create graphics with their movements in the stage environment around them.
Based on rules and structured in a game-like manner, the installation makes way for a playful dialog between the video artist and the dancers.
Ole Kristensen, one of the installation's video designers, provides a brief technical overview of the tools used to create the infrared tracking and interactive video projection:
We used Processing for the infrared blobtracking of the dancers and drawing the open gl graphics. During the performance video designer Tina Tarpgaard controlled the whole thing live from an Isadora-based interface via osc.
Danish Dance Theatre's Labyrinth
New York City-based Chris Elam, artistic director, Misnomer Dance Theatre, was one of the choreographers participating in the creation of Danish Dance Theatre's "Labyrinth."
A user walks into a booth, follows choreographic instructions and their movements are recorded. The resulting videos are posted to the Move-Me.com website.
Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson created Move-Me.com. You can learn about their other dance and video related projects on leftluggage.
Intro to Anatomy & Kinesiology
Explore the skeletal-muscular system experientially through functional and expressive movement, activation of the subjective body, group discussion and hands-on work.
Intro to Bartenieff Fundamentals
Immerse yourself in an extraordinary, integrative movement experience that goes beyond technique. Explore the underlying principles of movement through the lens of Bartenieff, the somatic movement approach that is shaking up and waking up the fitness, dance and sports worlds.
Intro to Laban Movement Analysis
Learn to analyze the body in motion, become a more dynamic mover and communicator through understanding your movement preferences and investigate the many ways the body can shape itself and project into space. Experience LMA, applied in fields including the Performing Arts, Public Speaking, CGI and Robotics, Fitness, Psychotherapy, Corporate Team Building, Anthropology, Athletics and at all levels of Education.
I loved watching the close-up shots of this engaging HD dance video on Vimeo. The video is titled "Yael Serfaty Dance Project" and is described as "A special improvisational dance filmed for a video installation of Yael Serfaty" -- (Watch on Vimeo to see high-quality version):
I would like to see more dance performances and installations shot, edited and uploaded like this. For me, there's nothing like high-quality video and close-up shots to get a real feel for the dancers who are performing.
The odd thing is that I have no idea who the choreographer is or who the dancers are. I did a search on the video title name and Zin, but came up with nothing that makes much sense. Can anybody help?
I wasn't thrilled by the submissions I came across. But here are two of the better ones I found that give you an idea of what types of dance moves you can create with Spore:
And here's a demonstration of the advanced character creation functionality:
If you find high-quality submissions to the Spore contest or create your own, please let me know about them.
Merkavah is described in mystical texts as 'the Devine Chariot' or 'vehicle through the heavens'. Geometrically, it's visualized by two pyramids intersecting one another with one pointing up and the other down (like the Star of David). The center is of a hexagonal shape.
We designed a hexagonal mirrored space (see "Making Of" below), which only reflects from the inside. These special mirrors made it possible for us to film through the structure and capture the dance from 6 different angles simultaneously and reflecting in multiple layers. I ended up with a lot of footage, making an edit for a single screen for television in 2002. 5 years after broadcasting the film, the club 11 space gave me the opportunity to make a 6 screen video installation of Merkavah. This meant that we finally could present the work as it was shot, synchronous from different angles. I edited the movements of the dance with time-remaps over the different screens, to emphasize the traveling through the heavens - 'the body through the geometry'.
Kevin Abbott, project director for the Digital Media center, created this animation for a dance concert last fall:
The animation was created using our Vicon motion capture system. The 3D character modeling and the mocap data editing was done in 3DS Max. Lighting, rendering, texturing and camera work was done in Cinema 4D. Music by Radiohead.
David Curwen, co-director of the Digital Media Center and associate professor in the Department of Dance at Western Michigan University, performed and co-choreographed the above animation.
Four Indispensable Topics for the Dance and Movement Community
If I were conducting a conference, workshop or town hall meeting for the dance and movement community, these are the four topics I'd focus on:
- 1) How to write about, talk about and communicate information about dance and movement to the non-dance community.
- 2) The meaning of the Internet.
- 3) Implementing a grassroots campaign to promote dance and the performing arts.
- 4) New Revenue Streams to Support Dancers.
To me, these topics desperately need attention in the immediate future. These four areas of exploration all have to do with the health, viability and success of dance as a vital art form.
1) How to write about, talk about and communicate information about dance and movement to the non-dance community.
This may strike some as too basic and too insignificant, but there is a huge problem with the way information and ideas are communicated to the general public about dance. All forms of dance communications -- reviews, press releases, websites, blogs, email broadcasts, social networking sites, marketing collateral, fundraising solicitations, ads, videos and everything else - should be dissected and reevaluated.
This may sound like an extreme statement: I barely understand 70-90% of the communications I read about dance - seriously! The bottom-line is that a major overhaul of dance communications is needed.
To test whether or not you agree with my premise, visit ten websites for dance companies whose work you are not familiar with. Read the descriptions (if they exist) and watch the accompanying videos (if they exist), and decide to what extent you have been enlightened and informed. If you find something you like, please post comment.
2) The meaning of the Internet
I've been blogging about dance and the Internet for three years. So I'm sometimes startled by the lack of understanding among dance companies and presenters about what the Internet is all about and how it can be used by dancers. And when I do attend educational sessions about the Internet and the arts, I often find them very unenlightening.
I was stunned by the polling results from the Town Meeting at the recent National Performing Arts Convention in Denver. For the polling results for improving arts advocacy, only 5% of the voters thought the Internet was of any value and the item relating to the Internet was complete gibberish. I have no idea what this means - what is a "Google Arts - type resource"?
Explore interactive new media initiatives to increase access and relevance (e.g. create a "Google Arts"-type resource, blogs,YouTube) - 5%
Overall, new hands-on approaches to Internet education are needed with a strong strategic framework, or very little improvement will be made to how the dance community uses the online world. It's simply not enough to create a website, a Facebook profile and a YouTube channel and believe the problems of the Internet have been resolved.
3) Implementing a grassroots campaign to promote dance and the performing arts.
I've recently written two posts on this topic. My main point is that people involved in all forms of dance and movement - dancers, choreographers, dance companies, presenters, teachers, academics, librarians, researchers, notators, critics/writers, dance therapists, somatic instructors, certified movement analysts, publicists and anybody I left out - should get together and figure out how to leverage the online world on a large scale to build new and larger audiences. This is untapped territory that is just waiting to be exploited.
Dancers need new avenues for making money. Everybody is always complaining about cut-backs in grantmaking and other economic challenges -- all justifiable. But there is rarely fruitful discussion and action taken to actually figure out new approaches to making money for artists. I've written many times over the years about new possible avenues for generating revenue with a focus on online possibilities - the interest in these posts tends to be very low unfortunately.
That said, there are positive developments. The Field, based here in New York City, is launching the "Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA)" project. They will be giving grants to dance and theater artists who are pursuing new business models to support their creative work. We need more programs like this!
a series of steps which rise up out of the water in front of you as you walk from one to the next, and then disappear back underneath behind you as you go, leaving you stranded with only one step visible in front of you, and one behind. The bridge ends in the middle of the water, where you find yourself totally isolated and cut off from the shore. You return the way you came. The mixed feelings of peace, isolation, relaxation and fear that the piece elicits are powerful. The project is on-going will ultimately lead to a permanent installation in a lake.
Cross shares his inspiration for this project:
The idea for Bridge first sprouted from a simple desire, I wanted to stand in the middle of a lake surrounded only by water. I didn't want a boat to get me there or a pier to link me safely to land and I didn't want to get wet. I wanted to walk across the water to the middle of a lake, so I saw that I would need a new kind of bridge and I decided to make one...I wanted to make the whole thing mechanical (no extra electrics or hydraulics) so that the person walking on it would power it, their footfall on each step raising the next.
But this installation was fraught with liability risks:
The first prototype of Bridge was a bit - well- dodgy, and from the off it was clear that there would probably be some accidents (in the end there were three)...Common sense would say that you should be able to warn people that they're taking this risk of their own free will and let them get on with it, but the law says otherwise. Disclaimers are not binding under UK law, and it was clear that I was personally liable for this risk. How much will Claims Direct get you for a broken wrist? And don't forget your month off work and the emotional trauma? Whatever it is, it's more than I had to spare and enough to end my career
...As a result arts organisations all over the country [England] suddenly became paranoid- and I started to really worry. All this resulted in frankly ridiculous levels of safety precautions, which were embarrassing and frustrating for me, and disappointing for the public. If you were part of that disappointed public I can only say I'm sorry - but that's the society we've somehow managed to make for ourselves. The future of HS law looks bleak to me, I can only say that in future versions of the bridge this problem should go away as the mechanism is improved, making the whole thing safer.
Radiohead New Video, "House of Cards," Created with 3D Data Visualization Tools
Radiohead's new "House of Cards" video (Their YouTube Channel) was created without video cameras. It was created with 3D imaging and capture technology from Geometric Informatics and Velodyne. And the open-source Processing programming language was used to create the video.
"House of Cards"
And here's the making-of-the-video video:
You can learn about this Readiohead project on Google Code.
The "House of Cards" video is open-source and participatory in nature.
Radiohead is encouraging fans to create their own data visualizations and upload them to the song's YouTube Channel.
If you visit this link, you can experiment with manipulating the underlying data with your mouse while exploring different types of visualizations. And if you're ambitious, here's the code that you can download to create and share your own visualizations.
Here's one of the user-generated visualizations:
More About the Software
I'm going to learn more about the software used for this Radiohead project. In the meantime, here's preliminary information about the applications and technologies:
Processing, which I've heard mentioned a few times recently by multimedia artists is described as:
an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.
On Processing, I found a link to this video of "Stay Still," which was choreographed by Kim Yunjin and performed by Kim Hyun, and used the Processing application for the on-screen projections:
Geometric Informatics specializes in 3D graphics and used their scanning systems to "produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity" for the Radiohead video. I found two interesting videos about the company's GeoVideo Real-Time Motion Capture system that can be used for capturing detailed facial expressions.
And Velodyne uses its laser systems for measurement applications, which are often deployed for military purposes. For the Radiohead video, their Lidar system used multiple lasers "to capture large environments such as landscapes." Here's a QuickTime video that shows how their laser system can illuminate and capture a ride down a highway.
Recently, I've been teaching myself more about human anatomy and physiology so I can have a better idea of what teachers are talking about in dance and somatic classes.
An excellent online resource for exploring our skeleton, muscular and other systems is the Visible Body - I've included screen shots below that give you an idea of how you can explore the body with this 3D tool.
Visible Body only runs on a PC with Internet Explorer. My only other complaint is that the muscles of the torso are not delineated. I was really hoping to see a very detailed view of all the core muscles.
What would be great to see in the next version of Visible Body would be 3D simulations. In somatic education classes, teachers are often talking about breathing, the lungs and how the respiratory system works. I'd like to see this entire process in operation so I can see how the parts work together.
Finally, I'd like to explore the rotation of all of the joints. If I clicked on the shoulder, I'd like to then drag and turn the elbow or wrist to see what the full range of the arms were when pushed and twisted in different directions.
Here are some screen shots of Visible Body - click for larger images:
Opening screen for Visible Body:
Ilium bone of the pelvis highlighted in skeletal view:
Fulbright Recipient Deborah Eve Friedes Completes Coverage of Contemporary Dance in Israel
For the 2007-2008 academic year, dancer and dance scholar Deborah Eve Friedes received a Fulbright grant to research contemporary dance in Israel.
I think that Deborah has done a wonderful job of writing about the dance scene in Israel and I encourage you to read her own blog and her posts on The Winger. She has also been conducting audio interviews with Israeli choreographers and dancers on Israel Seen.
You can learn more about Deborah's performances, directing, teaching and other activities on her website.
It's fitting that I saw the Batsheva Ensemble perform the latest version Ohad Naharin's Deca Dance at the Suzanne Dellal Center last week. You see, Deca Dance is the piece that drew me here to Israel. I wrote my Fulbright grant proposal having only seen the Batsheva Dance Company perform an earlier incarnation of this work (albeit 3 times). I hadn't seen any of Naharin's other dances, nor had I seen any other Israeli companies. Now - 4 years after I last saw Deca Dance, 9 and 1/2 months after landing in Israel, 2 days after finishing the term of my Fulbright grant, and 90-some dance concerts later - I feel I have come to the end of a cycle. I set out to learn about the wider field of Israeli contemporary dance, and although there is still more to explore, I have a much deeper understanding of dance's history in Israel as well as the scope of the field today. I devoted a considerable amount of time to independent choreographers and to companies other than Batsheva, but again and again, my attention returned to the origin of my interest, the center point of Israeli contemporary dance.
As I place Deca Dance within the context of Naharin's repertory, Batsheva's history, and the larger frame of Israeli contemporary dance, I realize how much I have gained from my research. I love being able to look at a dance from different angles, and with the information I have gathered, I now have a tempting menu of choices for how to view each performance. I also have had the pleasure of watching the same dancers develop over the course of the season and talking with them offstage; as I'm sure many of you know, it's a delight to watch dancers that you know, to seek them out during the sections at which you know they excel, and to find your attention captured unexpectedly by them when they perform something with added nuance or new skill. A part of me wishes that my Fulbright could continue - after all, it's been a dream to structure my own time and pursue independent research with few restraints! - but I am blessed with the gifts of this grant as I complete this cycle and start the next.
Karl Cronin's "Human Geography" and Picture Tour on Ikea Water Taxi
Yesterday evening I attended Karl Cronin's "Human Geography and the Practice of Presence" program in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Karl is an iLAB 2008 Artist in Residence. iLand is an interdisciplinary arts project created by Jennifer Monson.
Below you'll find pictures of my trip on the Ikea taxi boat that I took from the East River just south of Wall Street to Red Hook. The weather was spectacular and the program was fun and engaging. As you'll see below I only have a few performance pictures of Karl. I'm not usually big on interrupting performances with lots of pictures, but I do wish I at least took a couple of pictures of Maggie Bennett who also performed.
Karl described last night's program:
An evening of movement and experiences and experiments -- through a series of guided practices led by the collaborators, participants will have the opportunity to explore different ways of relating to space using their kinetic experience as a starting point.
And a summary of this research project:
The collaborators will conduct movement research based on two leading theories from the field of Human Geography: Action Network Theory (ANT) and Non-Representational Theory. These two theories have been widely debated within the field of geography, and in their own ways postulate a manner of being in space that involves interacting directly with one's environment--moving beyond layers of semiotics and abstracted representations.
I'll probably be meeting with Karl next week and I'll write more about last night's program and the focus of his project about human mapping.
You can click on each of the following pictures to see larger images:
I started taking modern dance classes again after a six-month hiatus. Last night I took Isabel Gotzkowsky's slow intermediate modern class at Dance New Amsterdam in downtown Manhattan. It's always a pleasure to take Isabel's class. I'm going to try to get in a routine of taking her Wednesday and Saturday classes.
I thought Isabel's slow intermediate modern class would be too challenging for me. In the past I've always taken her beginner class. While it was challenging, it felt manageable and my technique will improve more quickly in a more advanced class. The routine she taught the last half hour of the class did feel a little overwhelming at first. But by the end of the class I had the general idea. And she's teaching the same phrase this Saturday.
I even woke-up with minimal pain, which is great. I've actually been preparing for going back to dance classes for about 5-6 weeks. About every other day, I do a two-hour routine of stretching, strengthening and exercises. I incorporate a lot of what I learned from my physical therapy for my back and hips and combine that with exercises from jazz, modern, ballet and yoga. I also use a workout ball for my back and core and use a rubber band for strengthening.
It does take more time than I'd like to do my exercises and strengthening. But at 46, I know my body can't handle the physical stress from dance classes unless I'm in good shape.
Even though I enjoyed my foray into Argentine Tango, I'm much happier taking modern dance classes again.
I think that the simple beauty, repetitive movement, colorful scenery, diverse cultures, captivating music and highly participatory nature of the dance offers great food for thought.
It all leads me to one question: How come the Internet is rarely used to share the sheer fun of dancing?
Are SecondLife Avatars, 3D Animations and Motion Capture Ready for Dancers?
Summary: There are a number of efforts underway to make the 3D animated human form more lifelike. These developments are taking place both in virtual worlds such as SecondLife and with 3D animations initiated through motion capture systems. The end result will be the creation of personally-identifiable animations that move and act as their real-world counterparts.
These advances in 3D animation coupled with improved and less expensive capture technologies and animation software will, I believe, lead to large numbers of dancers experimenting with virtual worlds and different approaches to creating more realistic animations. Quality dance animations offer new avenues for creativity, marketing, studying choreography, revenue generation and the re-staging historical dance works. But the question remains how long it will take before the tools and software will be realistically ready for the dance community.
In this post, I cover:
* The Avatar Puppeteering project from Second Life
* Hands Free 3D's movement-based approach for controlling avatars
* The Laban Motion Capture Project at NYU
* The PhaseSpace active marker optical motional capture system
* Facial capture from Mova
Personalizing Behaviors of SecondLife Avatars
A limitation with 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life is that it is difficult for users to express personalized behaviors, expressions and movements through their on-screen avatars.
This year Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, has re-launched an effort called Avatar Puppeteering that is intended to make avatars more expressive.
A key component of this puppeteering initiative is to create "physical" avatars with human-like joints that can be manipulated by being "pushed, pulled, or rotated in real time for maximum expressivity and responsiveness." And these real-time adjustments in movements can be made while not allowing the avatar to rotate in ways that are unnatural to humans. You can't, for example, rotate your avatar's hips 180 degrees while both feet remain facing forward.
The following two videos from the Avatar Puppeteering project show how the joints of these avatars can be manipulated:
Controlling Avatars with 3D Video Cameras
An additional approach to simplifying the real-time, personalized manipulation of avatars is being developed by Hands Free 3D. I've highlighted their first video before that shows how a 3D video camera can be used to capture human movement that controls a Second Life avatar.
(Their second video shows how a 3D video camera can be used to control objects in SecondLife by simply using gestures.)
Laban Capture Project at NYU
While Avatar Puppeteering may add more personal characteristics to avatars and Hands Free 3D may make it easier to manipulate on-screen navigation and objects, the on-going Laban Project at New York University is addressing the high-end of the spectrum.
Christoph Bregler, associate professor of computer science, and Peggy Hackney, director of IMS Berkeley Laban/Bartenieff Certificate Program, are combining their respective expertise in motion capture and Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to create personally-identifiable 3D animated models.
The current state of motion capture does not allow viewers of the captured animation to identify the unique "movement signature" (an LMA term) of the actor whose movements are being played back. You're simply watching an impersonal skeleton or animated character moving in 3D space. The resulting animated character can be designed to take just about any shape or form and be infused with its own personality. The point of the NYU Laban Capture project is, however, to directly capture the unique movement qualities of a live subject through a motion capture system, which is a difficult undertaking.
For background purposes, here's a good video of how the motion capture process works. In this instance an optical motion capture system with active markers from PhaseSpace is being used in conjunction with MotionBuilder and Maya software from Autodesk.
And here's the end-result of such a capture process, also from PhaseSpace, of a rhinoceros Flamenco dancer:
Mocap Already Available for Expressive Faces
When it comes to capturing and animating unique facial expressions lots of progress has already been made from a company called Mova.
This first video shows the animated results of the face-capture process:
This video shows how the facial expressions were captured:
Your Feedback and Thoughts
Are you thinking of using motion capture or performing in SecondLife? Please share your thoughts and stories.
Apple Patents for Multi-Touch and Teaching Gestures
On July 3rd, the US Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple computer for "Gesture Learning."
Through this patent, Apple seeks to protect a method for teaching hundreds of gestures that are used or will be used to control multi-touch sensitive devices. This "Gesture Learning" patent follows last year's "Multi-Touch Gesture Dictionary" patent that I wrote about earlier this year in "Gesture Patents Point Way to Full-Body Interfaces."
Image from Gesture Learning Patent that shows interface for teaching Gestures
What I find so intriguing about these two patent filings is that Apple is creating a rich gesture-based movement language for controlling computers, mobile phones, music players and other devices. And Apple is also devising a computer-based system for teaching users how to master what will inevitably become a sophisticated gestural language with many options and possibilities.
My question for choreographers and dancers is whether you believe that Apple has entered into territory traditionally thought of as the domain of dancers and movement experts? And what will happen as new patent applications eventually go well beyond seeking to protect hand gestures and attempt to protect full-body movements generated by the arms, legs and torso? Are we just talking about ways to control computer interfaces or do these Apple filings have much greater importance--in particular to the dance community?
Background: Gesture Learning Patent
According to this patent application:
A multi-touch gesture can be as simple as using one or two fingers to trace out a particular trajectory or pattern, or as intricate as using all the fingers of both hands in a complex sequence of movements reminiscent of American Sign Language. Each motion of hands and fingers, whether complex or not, conveys a specific meaning or action that is acted upon by the computer or electronic device at the behest of the user. The number of multi-touch gestures can be quite large because of the wide range of possible motions by fingers and hands. It is conceivable that an entirely new gesture language might evolve that would allow users to convey complex meaning and commands to computers and electronic devices by moving their hands and fingers in particular patterns.
The fingers used and paths that a gesture may take
An individual multi-touch gesture, according to patent, includes two phases. The first phase, the "chord," consists of the hand parts used (e.g, a specified number of fingers and a thumb used in a particular configuration). The second phase consists of the motion of the specific hand parts. "This motion may take the form of lateral motions such as rotation, translation, scaling (expansion and contraction)...in some embodiments, this may comprise moving the hand parts around on the multi-touch surface. In such embodiments, the second phase of the gesture may also comprise vertical motions (relative to the multi-touch surface) such as tapping, double-tapping, etc."
With each hand able to execute twenty-five or more chords, and with each chord having thirteen or more motions associated therewith, there may be over three hundred possible gestures for each hand. Many more gestures are possible if both hands are used together.
New Interactive Application for Learning Gestures
In the summary section of the Gesture Learning patent application, you will find a detailed section describing the possible configuration of a graphical user interface for teaching this embodied language:
A flow chart of the gesture learning software application
The present invention can relate, for example, to a method for teaching gestures. The method can include presenting a display having two display areas, one of which can be a multi-touch monitor window. The multi-touch monitor window can be used to display interactive feedback to a user indicating what gesture the user is performing. The multi-touch monitor window can be overlaid on the first display area or can be a separate window, such as a side-by-side arrangement...
The interactive feedback can take a variety of forms. For example, the interactive feedback can comprise an animated hand together with one or more motion indicators. The animated hand can be a line drawings, a three-dimensional rendering, a translucent shadow of a hand, or other representation. The motion indicators can include motion trails or other representations, which can also be color-coded. The interactive feedback may also be superimposed with an animated display of a correctly performed gesture so that the user can see the difference, if any, between the gesture he performs and the idealized gesture.
