Digital Body

What form can the dancing body take in the 21st Century?

Digital Body project by Alexander Whitley Dance Company, photo by Robin Ashurst (2) copy.jpg

The Digital Body project, launched in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, is an experimental platform for digital dance collaboration exploring how human movement can be represented using motion-capture and 3D animation technology.

At the start of lockdown in March 2020, Alexander began creating a database of dance sequences using motion-capture technology, which were made freely available to digital artists to create short digital films from. This resulted in contributions from around the world (as featured in Wired UK & The Guardian), which you can watch below, and an Augmented Reality filter for Instagram.

Unable to rehearse and perform with my company of dancers as a result of the pandemic, I began recording dance sequences with a motion capture suit and sharing them here, seeing an opportunity to explore the seemingly limitless ways in which human movement can be visualised through digital technology and to test the thresholds of what remains recognisably human when the body is reduced to a set of points in space. My hope is to build a community around a new form of dance creation and collaboration, and to demonstrate new ways for the moving body to be experienced by the public.
— Alexander Whitley

Highlights

Visuals: Robin Ashurst, Music: Fossils by Ben Chatwin

Visuals: George Adamon, Music: Flex by Ben Frost

Visuals: Chris Waters, Music: Leviathan Spine by Daniel Mcgagh

Visuals: Felix Faire, Music: Winters Lament by Rival Consoles

the flowing shapes and patterns are not only a satisfying watch, but offer an insight into the human-digital form.
— Wired UK Instagram
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