Dancing in Virtual Reality

Abstract

This creative project serves to explore the fields of choreography, lighting and music design, and virtual reality technology to create a performance piece. There is a growing surge of advances in virtual reality technology, and in order to keep the field of dance innovative and the discussion between the worlds of dance and technology relevant, we are interested in merging the two in a collaborative work. It is important to continue to present dance to audiences using different means to help achieve an experience for the audience and explore creative options in our own choreography. The overall goal of this research is to create an interesting modern dance performance that incorporates virtual reality technology. Our end result will be accomplished by dividing the work into three separate parts. Each team member will then focus on their area of the project. The first area is the dance choreography which will be entirely in a modern dance vernacular. The second aspect is the lighting and music design. The music will be chosen to set the mood of the piece, and the lighting will have to be enough to light the dancer, yet not over power the projections on the screen. The third aspect is the virtual reality aspect. The technology has been designed by the visualization department in collaboration with the dancers. The combination of these three aspects will form a performance piece that will be presented to audiences of various backgrounds.