Mixing dance realities

An experimental dance performance featuring live-motion capture, real-time computer graphics, and multi-image projection was produced by a cross-departmental team of faculty and students at Purdue University. Dancers occupied and traversed performance mediums or "frames," including a virtual performance frame occupied by a 3D character, driven by a dancer in motion-capture equipment. Developing and facilitating the relationships between the dancers in various performance frames became a primary focus for the project, but other areas, e.g., creating an artistically sound and technologically seamless performance, helping the various team members collaborate, and exploring the nature of the technology, were important focus points as well.