Re: Soft for Dancers Up Date #2/ Articles On Line[wasThanks Armando for your very interesting comments.
Here my answers/comments:
1. "Microdances". We introduced this term to refer to a movement gesture (eg a dance step) of a duration usually of 20-30s to 1minute, therefore short enough to be analysed "scientifically" (performed repeatedly) and long enough to embed significant expressive content/intentions. We usually ask one or more dancers to perform a microdance (so, the same movement - in terms of "language") several times with with different expressive intentions. We record these performances and then we try to verify (i) if spectators exposed to those different performances of the same microdance understand the differences and the intended expressiveness (ii) if our computational models and algorithms (eg in EyesWeb) are able to detect some cues and invariants that allow to distinguish the different interpretations.
The problem of segmentation of a dance is a different and complex one (in a sense of segment a continuous stream of movement/gesture). Segmentation assumes some meaning given a context. For example, we could segment on peaks of velocity, on rests (with proper definition of rest!) etc. according to the context. A our paper on these aspects will be available next week, and on the EyesWeb release of May 7 (2.5) we'll deliver some demo patches doing some of these tasks on sample videos fragments.
2. "Expressiveness": I agree on the 6 domains (muscle, skeleton, eeg, dyaphram...). But let us consider the perspective of a spectator: a spectator of a dance performance does not have access to several of such layers, but has only a visual input, usually at a significant distance. For example, a spectator's perceptual system is not able as all to measure motion capture data as those measured by commercial systems (eg ascension, vicon etc or bioengineering/biomechanic systems). Probably a spectator has access to other different internal (eg mental model) and external "domains". Nevertheless a spectator can be "emotionally engaged", be "aroused" by such a visual stimulus. So, the perspective is not on the arousal/expressiveness/emotional engagement in the dancer but on what is communicated e.g. to a spectator.
(I think this spectator-centered perspective might be also very interesting from an aesthetic/artistic point of view)
In this direction, for example, there is a significant work by psychologists in which there are some hypotheses on "cues" in movement (e.g. energy/time dimensions) which are responsible of the perception of emotional content (circumplex models etc).
As for the cultural aspect, let us consider the following case: the same dancer performs the same "microdance" (or if you prefer the same "dance") in two different conditions, one in which he/she is not fully inspired and one in which he/she is.
So the cultural context is exactly the same.
If we measure that spectators are "aroused/engaged" only in the second performance (when the dancer is inspired), it would be interesting to try to understand/measure what is the difference.
In short, the problem of facing expressiveness/emotion is huge and probably will not be possible to be solved, nevertheless I deem that we can make some little steps in the direction of understanding something more of current state of the art.
Of course we are aware that, if successful, in our project we'll be only able to understand only a very small part of such a very complex phenomenon, but we think it is worth to explore and we are very interested in collaborations in this directions.
As for concrete artistic applications, these have driven our work in EyesWeb implementation. It is my convinction that an augmented sensitivity to more subtle and focused "cues" in movement (and in audio) can enable much more (artistically) interesting scenarios for interactive systems, in terms of mapping deeper movement gesture params on visual and acoustic outputs.
Further, the visualisation of movement cues seems to be relevant for the dancers we worked with (eg in terms of understanding and "seeing" some subtle movement cues, maybe for improving learning and self-awareness in certain difficult movement patterns) as well as with therapy and rehabilitation (we are working with medical teams facing two different diseases: Parkinson and severely handicapped children).
3. Macro: I mentioned an upcoming extension of EyesWeb concerning the inclusion of "macros". Just to clarify, this concept of "macro" is at a software implementation/design level, so it has nothing to do with the concept of "macro" mentioned by Armando. "Macro" in our system is only a way to incapsulate a process which can be genealised (e.g. the extraction of a dancer's body silhouette from an input image from videocamera), in order to reuse in a user's patch (application). In this way, an application can be built in terms of assembly of macros, thus reducing the technical skills required to build EyesWeb applications.
Thanks again for the interesting comments,
Best regards
Antonio
----- Original Message -----
From: Armando Menicacci
To: dance-tech@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 6:47 PM
Subject: Re: Soft for Dancers Up Date #2/ Articles On Line[was dance and language thread]
Maybe this is a good way for me to put together a further step that includes or refer to Sophia and Antonio's notes.
Let's talk about the Macro. I've been talking a while with Scott about this macro: it has many description problems.
1) lack of an extension "command" (assuming that a plié is a flexion), or, in other words, this is not a Glissade, this is a "Temps lié".
Glissade and temps lié have exacly the same pattern except the extension timing. If you do dégagé while you shift your weight from une foot to another you're doing a Temps lié because the temps lié has a grounding (bottom-up) dynamic while the glissade has a lightening dynamic (top down).
So, while you are making the firs dégagé with the left leg (line two), you are supposed to strech your right leg.
(It's funny to ee what someone "forgets" because you can see the way he feels his body)
So if the dégagé is done at the same time of the first plié this is a "Temps lié". If the dégagé is performed during a leg extension (after the first plié) this is a "Glissade".
on glissade;
do fifthposition
do plié (demi) while plié do degagé (my left leg)
while degagé (away) put the weight of my body from my right leg onto my left leg
do degagé (my right leg) while degagé (away) return the foot of my right leg infront of the foot of my left leg
do plié (demi)
end glissade;
2) Lack of dance (sorry, no command here)
Assuming that we have a perfect script we're still missing the dance. We have the right choreography, the right procedure, but how about interpretation? How about the lifez we give to a choreography? How about the quality of grounding or suspension we can have in arms and head and looks? Aren't these parts of the body participating? Is a dance professors someone who transmits procedures? Or is the procedure transmission just a way to share or awake a dance state in a student?
Let me put it this way. Every script we can make (of course including my exemple) is the choreography, but it's like a score in music: it's not music, it's notation.
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To go with Sophia I agree that ballet has basic signifying elements as steps (remains the problem of interpretation of steps, again, the problem of dance), but if we assume this how to consider a step in Judson church pasta cooking as a dance performance? What is there a basic elements? Pouring salt into water ?(be careful with your answer I'm Italian.... sensitive to pasta cooking). As you say in contact flux is a what matters, but I'm not sure that CI's sens is only there. Plus I don't know if you say the word Flux referring to laban's definitions or Kestemberg's, and this is a problem for me becaus I don't know how to go on on this not knowing more precisely your point of view.
In any case in CI, as you said, the shape doesn't matter (this means procedure's scripts description like systems). This is enough for me to say that Dance (as I'd say Language or blindness, considered as abstract categories) is not a language per se. Some dances are languages that can use linguistics and instruments that are referring to meaning, syntax analysis and so on. Because dance appears to me more a state of sensitivity than a phisical procedure assembley or body practical discipline.
Antonio's point is very interesting to me as a research, and I look forward to see the database that's coming out in may, but there is first problem for me in segmentation: Where a "microdance" starts and ends? The question is liked to a linguistic thinking, because stilness (remember the thread?) is a myth. Or we can say that even in a still a silent body something is creating meaning and modulating it through time?
I think that in dance we cannot even start to analyze meaning (from a scientific point of view if we don't calculate ALL the tensions that participate. More precisely I think that we should observe six domains Skeletal (what mocap captures)
Muscle tensions (what EMG captures)
Diaphragm use (no capture at the moment or maybe with echography)
Respiration (I can't say here why we distinguish respiration from diaphragms as two separate domains of analysis. We consider at least four diaphragms, and they all have different respiration)
Perception settings (same thing, too long for this mail. We consider that foveal way of looking is bringing inside a bound flow preferred potential, to speak with Kestenberg's categories )
And (finally) expression. This is becaus expression cannto be considered without all the rest. But all the rest is not universal, expressiveness is definitely linked to a relationship with the environnement. So, to conclude, All of these domains (divided into further detailed layers) are "readalbe" or interpretable only INSIDE a particulat cultural group and moment (space and Time).
I'm sorry It took so long. It's an interesting question for me and I'm full of questions
Cheers
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Armando Menicacci (Paris 8 University)
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