Tyler Walters, Associate Professor of the Practice, Dance
Martin Brooke, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Description:

Currently, archiving of dance performance for study by students is done on an ad-hoc basis with limited impact.  While video has been used to some extent, a two dimensional representation of dance has limited value when multiple performers are involved or when the views recorded do not provide essential information for students to study certain types of movement.

This project will create the initial stage of a prototype archive of basic ballet vocabulary using 3-D dance recording and archiving.  RFID tags, accelerometers, infrared emitters, and stereo video are among the technologies that will be explored for recording.  The use of virtual reality environments for archive access will be investigated, along with conversion to formal dance notation.

Tyler Walters, using advanced students in Dance at Duke, will collaborate with undergraduate students of Martin Brooke in the ECE undergraduate project class ECE 51, where the students will assemble the basic technologies for capturing and generating the dance data.  The initial prototype of the archive, first using video and later 3d representations, will be used as a teaching aid for Ballet Fundamentals, Ballet I, and Ballet II.

The Center for Instructional Technology is providing funding for the project in addition to loaning four high definition hard drive camcorders that will be used in the dance data capture process.

Project start date: 1/12/2009

Funding awarded:  $6,300