Breaktech

Semantic Structure, Meta Language, Dance, Music

This project was developed in several stages. It first emerged as a series of poiints, drawn on the floor, in order to give my dance students a visual system with which to structure their range of movement. Seing where to place their hands and feet really helped the learning process, by allowing theem to learn visually. Tactile learnears benefitted from this as well.

The second stage of it's evolution was to build a pad that lies flat on the floor, which has resistance sensors imbedded in the pad, below the points corresponding to the visual system mentioned above. As students stepped on the points of the visual system, they triggered sounds. "BOOM, CLACK, B-BOOM, CLACK". This helped my students to understand their body movements in the same logical structure as music: rhythmic patterns. If they were doing the movement correctly, then they would hear the right rhythm. This also allowed students to learn audibly.

The third stage of this project was to place a small camera to the front of the pad. The pad alone could only gather data from movement on a horizontal axis along the floor. It did not motivate my students to move their arms much. Therefore, I added a camera to the front of the pad. The camera sends the feed to a software that analyzes differences from frame to frame in order to detect motion. Motions in different areas of the matrix trigger different sounds. Now my students could swing their arms in different directions to activate sounds as well.

Once I was able to capture a full range of motion (wihout having to actually wear any sensors) I then programmed the software to be able to recognize BPM, record and loop multiple phrases, and swich the sound-banks. In addition, all the loop and switch points can be automated, so that as long as the dancer keeps up with the choreography, they will get the desired result...as shown on the video below.

Below is a screenshot of the software interface for the pad.

This project was greatly inspired by people such as Cab Calloway and James Brown. These guys literally conducted their bands/orchestras with their dance moves..."please, please, please". I wanted my students to have that same involvement with the music, through their bodies. This can also serve as an interface to a wide range of games aimed learning through different goals, rules, and parameters.