Transforming Intangible Folkloric Performing Arts into Tangible Choreographic Digital Objects: The Terpsichore Approach

Intangible Cultural Heritage is a mainspring of cultural diversity and as such it should be a focal point in cultural heritage preservation and safeguarding endeavours. Nevertheless, although significant progress has been made in digitization technology as regards tangible cultural assets and especially in the area of 3D reconstruction, the e-documentation of intangible cultural heritage has not seen comparable progress. One of the main reasons associated lies in the significant challenges involved in the systematic e-digitisation of intangible cultural assets, such as performing arts. In this paper, we present at a high-level an approach for transforming intangible cultural assets, namely folk dances, into tangible choreographic digital objects. The approach is being implemented in the context of the H2020 European project "Terpsichore".