Choreopr-axis Sleeve
The Choreopr-axis sleeve is a tool designed for dancers and choreographers as a way to discover new movement possibilities and experiment with how dancers can use a live visual score to interpret and communicate.
produced by: Abi Price
This project is a wearable sleeve for use in a creative movement environment. The sensor has been designed to be worn on the elbow but can also be worn on the wrists, knees or ankles. It uses an accelerometer and homemade touch sensor (acting as a button) to transmit data into Processing to create a variety of sketches. The piece explores the way in which dancers communicate and how that communication is understood without another dancer being visible, but just through the sketch on screen. This sketch is then interpreted by a second dancer, translating these 2D images (score for movement) back into movement, creating different experiences between two bodies in the same space. These experiences involve presenting the body as a habitat rather than thinking of it as a literal form. As a dance artist, we can posess internal habitats by inhabiting the movement that is created.
One of the main concepts of the piece is to create new possibilities for movement. However, the aim is not to try to make both dancers movements the same but to experience movement in a different way and open up questions such as …
How is movement data translated to a sketch/score?
How do we interpret movement from a 2D sketch?
How does this physical system change what we know about movement/choreography?
I consider futher experimentation with this project by making the device wireless and making more sleeves so multiple dancers wear them. This is in order to create a back and forth of communication between dancers on different parts of the body to make wider scope for whole body movement.
References
Code for accelerometer adapted from http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/LilyPad_Accelerometer_ADXL335