Shaping Dance Improvisatory Processes Intertwined with Actual and Virtual Bodies: Exploring Sculptural Qualities Within Motion Capture Environments

Sykes, Lucie

Abstract

This practice-as-research investigates embodied dance improvisatory approaches within motion capture environments through a shaping process I call Sculptural Qualities. Sculptural Qualities, a term developed during this research, are processual and relational. The thesis explores what Sculptural Qualities emerge within motion capture environments and how movement practitioners can access and activate these unfolding experiences of being intertwined with body, self, and the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
Within phenomenology and embodiment, access and activation are processes of direct experiential “coupling” (Clark, 2008) of the movement practitioners' bodies, movement impulses and the environment. These coupling processes involve direct and active engagement to enable movement practitioners to "extend" awareness of their sensations, emotions, and bodily experiences of seeing-moving-responding.
As motion capture technologies develop, they enable an innovative way to perceive and interact with movement, allowing real-time tracing of movements and gestures. The real-time engagement introduces a feedback loop and transforms the sculptural motion – the path of the movement visualised in the form of a digital trace (Laban & Ullmann, 2011) as lines, dots, particles and polygons. Through studio-practice experimentation, the movement practitioner's lived experiences and their expressive responses of shaping and reshaping contribute to the sculptural emergence with temporal and dynamic unfolding. I propose that these shaping processes extend the improviser's body-mind into tools, technologies, and the environment (Clark, 2008a, 2008b; Ihde, 2012). This thesis embodies PaR methodology and Nelson’s (2013, 2022) multi-modal knowledge model with qualitative and interpretative phenomenological methods to gather and analyse experiential responses and insights from movement practitioners.
This PaR's contribution is a methodological framework focusing on the holistic experience of sensing and responding as an innovative and dynamic approach to dance improvisation within motion capture environments. I propose new methods for engaging with dance improvisation through in-readiness as an active listening state of experiential couplings between physical and digital. The sculptural intentional improvisations engage feedback loop processes and activate Sculptural Qualities through four core elements: stillness as a dynamic state, states of focused stillness with T-pose, repetition, and accidental micro-intentions.

Citation

Sykes, L. (2024). Shaping Dance Improvisatory Processes Intertwined with Actual and Virtual Bodies: Exploring Sculptural Qualities Within Motion Capture Environments. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 18, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 27, 2024
• Keywords: Embodied movement, extended experiences, dance improvisation, shaping, feedback loop, sculptural sensibilities, motion capture.
• Award Date: Sep 26, 2024