JJ Aucouturier - Motion Capture

Dance Motion Capture

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London + Queen Mary, University of London, UK, May 2006
I designed and conducted a series of motion capture sessions with dancers, to investigate the motor consequences of modifying music while dancing. The investigated music and dance was a traditional form of French Breton music called "hanterdro". The experiments never went beyond "pilot" phase, but paved the way for e.g. miuro .
Joint work with: Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut (Queen Mary University of London)

Related publications:

The experiments never went beyond "pilot" phase (although I haven't lost hope, and would be interested in similar projects in the future). The rationale and preliminary results of the experiments were reported in:

Aucouturier, J.-J. Investigating embodiment mechanisms in music perception: The case of traditional dance music. Proceedings of the 11^th Japanese Auditory Research Forum, Shiga, Japan, Dec. 2006.
Aucouturier, J.-J. How musical is a foot ?. SOAS Research Report, Sept. 2006.

Funding:

The experiments were funded by a Invited Research Fellowship at the AHRB Research Centre for Cross-Cultural Music and Dance Performance, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK (My thanks to Prof. Keith Howard). Motion capture was conducted courtesy of the Augmented Human Interaction Lab, Department of Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, UK (My thanks to Prof. Pat Healey). All my thanks too, to the 2 dancers/subjects (Marianne and Tony) who took part in the torture.

Session pictures: (thanks Sue Dickinson)

What hanterdro looks like through mocap:

Animation of mocap markers during a dance.

Picture of left foot and right foot patterns during 5 steps.