This past Fall, the The Integrative and Quantitative (IQ) Center collaborated with the Dance department on two interesting projects.
Since the fall recital, W&L Dancers Create, was going virtual, DANC 110 (University Dance) wanted to create a video to be used in the program. The class created an original music score and choreographed a dance that utilized outdoor spaces around campus.
They worked with the IQ Center to shoot and edit the dance using equipment from the Center, including video cameras and a drone. The entire piece was shot and edited in 4K resolution and the 5 minute final version was included as part of the Fall program:
Another dance class, DANC 223 (Intermediate Contemporary Dance), experimented with the IQ Center’s motion capture system.
This system allows dancers wearing a special suit covered with reflective markers to capture the full range of their motion to a computer system. This is the same technique used in movies and video games to capture realistic movements that can be transferred to computer generated characters.
The IQ Center motion capture system was set up in the dance studio and projected on the wall, so the dancers could see the capture data in real time. The recorded output was then applied to computer generated characters and rendered as video clips.
Here the four dancers in the class were inserted on a computer generated stage together performing a similar dance routine:
We then did some experiments in the IQ Center applying some more abstract shapes to the motion capture data. We hope these experiments will inform future motion capture projects.
Interested in learning more? Contact David Pfaff, IQ Center Academic Technologist at 540.458.8044.