"Virtual Relationships: The Dancer and the Avatar"
A fascinating essay on the effects (and affects) of new motion capture technology, visual rendering and VR and AR interfaces on choreographic practice and the interrelation between dancer and avatar.
The authors argue recent technological advances in motion capture technology and visualizing software along with immersive interfaces in VR and AR have led to the permit a “fluid emotional and affective communication [between performer and avatar]” (62).
The authors claim that this advancement shifts the basis of virtual choreography away from mimicry or substitution of direct interaction and movement, to a new terrain in which “it is the way that physical attributes of proportion, gravity, muscularity and force, as well as mental attitude and the vitality of a dancer, are then digitally and aesthetically recomposed into the virtual avatar that can become revelatory” (62).