Choreomorphy: a Whole-body Interaction Experience for Dance Improvisation and Visual Experimentation

Choreomorphy is inspired by the Greek words "choros" (dance) and "morphe" (shape). Visual metaphors, such as the notion of transformation, and visual imagery are widely used in various movement and dance practices, education, and artistic creation. Motion capture and comprehensive movement representation technologies, if appropriately employed can become valuable tools in this field. Choreomorphy is a system for a whole-body interactive experience, using Motion Capture and 3D technologies, that allows the users to experiment with different body and movement visualisations in real-time. The system offers a variety of avatars, visualizations of movement and environments which can be easily selected through a simple GUI. The motivation of designing this system is the exploration of different avatars as "digital selves" and the reflection on the impact of seeing one's own body as an avatar that can vary in shape, size, gender and human vs. non-human characteristics, while dancing and improvising. Choreomorphy is interoperable with different motion capture systems, including, but not limited to inertial, optical, and Kinect. The 3D representations and interactions are constantly updated through an explorative co-design process with dance artists and professionals in different sessions and venues.