Motion To Gesture To Sound: Mapping For Interactive Dance

Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2010), Sydney, Australia

Mapping in interactive dance performance poses a number of questions related to the perception and expression of gestures in contrast to pure motion-detection and analysis. A specific interactive dance project is discussed, in which two complementary sensing modes are integrated to obtain higher- level expressive gestures. These are applied to a modular non- linear composition, in which the exploratory dance performance assumes the role of instrumentalist and conductor. The development strategies and methods for each of the involved artists are discussed and the software tools and wearable devices that were developed for this project are presented.