ABSTRACT
In July 2018, our interdisciplinary group of collaborators presented a live digital-dance performance Malta Calls for Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture, using the inertial sensor (IMU)Rokoko Smartsuit Pro motion capture system in an embedded way throughout development and production. In doing this, we explored the impact of this real-time, camera-less, and wireless motion capture technology on the ways in which contemporary dance works could be devised and produced to enhance the expressive possibilities of digital dance. This chapter explains and explores the successes and limitations of this project, contextualised and informed by a philosophy of digital media that interrogates the potential of such technologies in their uses in both disciplinary and creative modes. While many have seen motion capture technology primarily as a functional and efficient tool for the documentation, cataloguing, and archiving of generic dance movement, I suggest that through the use of motion capture data the movement of the body can be altered and extended into pure virtual qualities of movement. When digitally visualised on screens, or in immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), this digital expression of bodily motion has aesthetic significance for both choreographic creatives and for dance audiences. I suggest that the technology can be used to capture dance movement in a way that should suggest itself to aesthetic, phenomenological, affective, and even therapeutic realms of engagement and creative practice.
