Posts Tagged ‘learning’

Kirk Woolford: Image documenting the making of Will.0.w1sp

Enhance your work by learning how to use the latest low-cost motion capture technology.

This two day workshop will focus on how motion capture can be used for performances and installations in conjunction with lower-cost, or free, tools.

Working in the studios at the University of Sussex as well as on location on the South Downs and in Brighton city centre, Kirk Woolford will lead the workshop, sharing his 16 years of experience as an artist/designer and software developer.

Kirk will also be inviting participants to join him in creating a large-scale piece to be shown during the Brighton White Nights festival in October 2011.

This is an invaluable opportunity to work with a highly experienced artist, working at the cutting edge of the digital and creative industries.

03 – 04 September 2011
University of Sussex, Brighton
10.00am – 5.00pm
£80 including lunch
For further details and how to book go to www.southeastdance.org.uk

Kinect Installation at Singapore Dance Fest

When Microsoft unleashed the Kinect last fall as an add-on for Xbox 360, hackers and geeks the world over were chomping at the bit to break in and figure out what it can do. That’s because the Kinect is a $150 piece of equipment that contains a super sophisticated camera that can detect depth (3D), color, speed and motion, as well as stereophonic microphones that can place sounds in space. As a result it’s basically a rudimentary brain that has both sight and sound senses and can capture and respond to the world like a sentient being (almost).

The list of Kinect hacks has been piling up since it was released last November, and it will keep growing thanks to Microsoft’s new Kinect Developers kit for Windows (apparently a Mac kit is in the works). Among the coolest developments is motion capture software like Jasper Brekelman’s Brekel that enables anyone to create their own mo-cap animations using the Kinect. Here is a preview of “Under the HUD” by Triangle Productions, an animated series using Brekel and Kinect’s motion capture capabilities. Although the choreography is not so impressive, they give great insight into how they are using the technology.

The sensors on the Kinect make it a powerful tool for intermedia performance. Amazing live interactive animations like those of Chunky Move’s “Mortal Engine” can be obtained using the Kinect for a tiny fraction of the cost and technological know how. Here is an example of an artful performance with live video projections using a Kinect developed by the media and design firm 1024 Architecture.

There have been many technological precedents to the Kinect, but for a much higher price tag. In the dance world this kind of technology was formerly only available to universities and world class dance companies with loads of funding. The prototype of Kinect’s camera and microphone alone cost $30,000! How can Microsoft charge only $150 for the same technology? Well the answer is in the popularity of the device, which has already sold 10 million units and counting.

The fact that this device is called Kinect and was designed to track the motion of the human body seems to be a dream come true for dance artists and movers. I can’t wait to see what artists and geeks will come up with next.

To learn more and see loads of videos about hacks for the Kinect go to: Kinecthacks.net

Curious about 3D dance filmmaking? Check out this 6 minute FORA.tv video by Jacob’s Pillow Dance for an introductory primer.  Award-winning filmmakers Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer of Mouvement Perpétuel share their artistic approach and production process using visual examples from their current collaboration with choreographer Crystal Pite and the National Film Board of Canada.  Millar and Szporer describe how a 3D camera works, share their 3D story boards, take us inside the green screen studio with the dancers, and discuss why they are interested in the challenge of creating a stereoscopic experimental dance film incorporating animation.

Can 3D dance film change how audiences experience and participate in dance? What do you think? Comments and links to other 3D dance film insights welcomed.

"Outside In" by Victoria Marks, Photo by Mark Lewis

Kinetic Cinema with Victoria Marks

Thursday, October 22nd, 7:00pm. $10 (at the door)

University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street, NYC

Kinetic Cinema explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. For each screening Anna Brady Nuse, Pentacle’s director of Movement Media, invites a different guest artist to share a selection of films and videos that have inspired them. This month, award-winning choreographer and dance film-maker, Victoria Marks presents a program in which she weaves together her main cinematic influences with her own dance film work.

Workshop: Choreo-Portraits in Film with Victoria Marks

Friday, October 23rd, 10:00am-2:00pm

Chen Dance Center

8 East 1st Street, (btw Bowery & 2nd Avenue), NYC

In dance, trained and virtuosic bodies often stand in for the universal or human figure. How can cinematic movement studies capture the “who” of the performer, particularly as they move with another person? “Choreo-portraiture” is the name renowned choreographer and filmmaker Victoria Marks has given to dances she makes that are about the people who inhabit them. In choreo-portraits, Marks searches not for extraordinary feats, but for the small actions and interactions that communicate who these people are, alone and together. In this workshop, participants will consider this idea as they serve to design and shoot one another’s movements.

Open to dance and film professionals and students, registration is limited to 20 ppl. Workshop fee $35.00. Register online, or contact movementmedia@pentacle.org.

Movement Media in Philadelphia:

Presented by the Institution of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

Kinetic Cinema Wed. Oct. 21st at 6:30pm

Choreo-Portraits in Film Workshop Sat. Oct. 24th 10:00am-5:00pm

Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

118 South 36th Street

Philadelphia, PA

Victoria Marks will also present her Kinetic Cinema screening and Choreo-Portraits workshop at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia in conjunction with their ground-breaking Dance with Camera exhibition.

Go to www.icaphila.org for more information and to register for the workshop.

"Not About Iraq" by Victoria Marks

Victoria Marks recent work considers citizenship, as well as the representation of both virtuosity and disability. Marks has served as faculty in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA since 1995.  She is a 2007 EMPAC award winner for the creation of “Veterans,” a dance for the camera made with Margaret Williams.  “Veterans” won first prize in the Barcelona Video Dance Festival, 2008.  Marks is also a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and has received recent grants from the Irvine Foundation (Dance: Creation to Performance 2004 and DanceMaker 2002), the NEA (2005) and the Cultural Affairs Council (COLA 2001).  In 1997, Marks was honored with the Alpert Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography.  Over the course of her career, she has been the recipient of multiple grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and the London Arts Board, among others. She has received a Fulbright Fellowship in Choreography, and numerous awards for her dance films with Margaret Williams, including the Barcelona VideoDance Prize, the Grand Prix in the Video Danse Festival, the Golden Antenae Award from Bulgaria, the IMZ Award for best screen choreography and the Best of Show in the Dance Film Association’s Dance and the Camera Festival.