"Becoming My Own Audience": How Dancers React to Avatars Unlike Themselves in Motion Capture-Supported Live Improvisational Performance

TL;DR

This study investigates how motion-capture–driven avatars of varying genders, body types, and disabilities influence dancers’ improvisation and perception in live, immersive performances. Using a two-stage workshop with five avatars and a 360-degree projection environment, the authors combine semi-structured interviews, think-aloud protocols, computer-vision analysis, and embodied questionnaires to reveal defamiliarization effects, constraint-driven creativity, and nuanced embodiment. Key contributions include demonstrating the potential of avatars to broaden representation in dance practice, reveal new movement vocabularies under constraints, and raise design considerations for calibration, feedback, and expressiveness in MoCap-enabled performances. The findings suggest avatars can expand inclusive movement practice and prompt empathy while highlighting practical trade-offs between agency, feedback, and expressive depth in live digital dance.

Abstract

The use of motion capture in live dance performances has created an emerging discipline enabling dancers to play different avatars on the digital stage. Unlike classical workflows, avatars enable performers to act as different characters in customized narratives, but research has yet to address how movement, improvisation, and perception change when dancers act as avatars. We created five avatars representing differing genders, shapes, and body limitations, and invited 15 dancers to improvise with each in practice and performance settings. Results show that dancers used avatars to distance themselves from their own habitual movements, exploring new ways of moving through differing physical constraints. Dancers explored using gender-stereotyped movements like powerful or feminine actions, experimenting with gender identity. However, focusing on avatars can coincide with a lack of continuity in improvisation. This work shows how emerging practices with performance technology enable dancers to improvise with new constraints, stepping outside the classical stage.

Figures (17)

• Figure 1: Performances with MoCap: a. Beyoncé used MoCap in 'Run the World (Girls)' at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards beyonce_beyonce_2011; b-d. MoCap-supported live performance noauthor_luyang_nodatenoauthor_maanasa_nodatenoauthor_studios44mocaplab_nodate.
• Figure 2: The workshop process uses avatars that female participants experienced as examples. Male participants experienced avatars of the opposite gender (male, heavyset male, female, male in a wheelchair, and male without arms).
• Figure 3: Floor plan and experimental setup: a. Only one dancer improvised with avatars in the environment during the first stage; b. One researcher took narrative videos besides the 360 camera and video camera during the second performance stage; c. When experiencing the avatar in a wheelchair, a normal chair was placed in the environment as a set.
• Figure 4: An overview of the system: Dancers wearing the MoCap suit did calibration and sent motion data through Axis Studio software connected to the PC. The motion data from Axis Studio was live-streamed to Unity applications with avatars and the virtual environment. The PC was connected to projectors and speakers for visual and audio output. Dancers could see real-time visual feedback and hear improvisation music simultaneously.
• Figure 5: Mapping of Avatars to the environment: a. The initial position of the avatar (experienced by P1-P6) was set to a forefront position to capture videos better; b. The initial position of the avatar (experienced by P7-P15) was set to the center of the space, where the avatar appeared at its largest and could only be partly seen; c. When dancers stood close to the screen, the avatar was the smallest as life-size; d. The avatar was made to face the same direction as the dancer, except for the avatar in a wheelchair.