Rhonda Ryman

From dance notation to human animation: The LabanDancer project

Symbolic systems such as Labanotation for notating dance and choreography provide a critical tool for the preservation of cultural heritage in what once was considered an ‘illiterate’ art form. While the goals of such notation systems are laudable, the unfortunate reality is that most dancers and choreographers cannot read or write the notation; that is, they are loath to take the considerable effort to learn a rich, but complex methodology. To make Labanotation scores more accessible the LabanDancer system has been developed to translate Labanotation scores recorded in the LabanWriter editor into 3‐d human figure animations. A major challenge in the development of this translator has been to find approaches that are general enough to create reasonable animations for a wide variety of different movements. Any translator must also take account of the context of a movement since this can affect the interpretation of the Labanotation scores. Copyright

From dance notation to human animation: The LabanDancer project: Motion Capture and Retrieval

Not everything is perceived as it is provided by the environment. Depending on focus and attention perception can vary and therefore also the knowledge about the world. Virtual humans are sensing the virtual world, storing knowledge and using it to perform tasks. This paper describes our approach to model perceiving, storing and forgetting knowledge as the main regulation of tasks. We use different forms and levels of knowledge which can be independently adapted to different personalities and situations by combining computer graphics methods with psychological models. Copyright

A Computerized Editor of Benesh Movement Notation

Notation plays a very important role in todays society. It acts as a communication medium between inventors and those who will implement their ideas. Without notation our knowledge of the past and present would be limited by our memory and prone to errors in oral transmission. Although we take for granted the existence of a suitable notation in almost all fields of human study, this is not true in the field of human movement. For example, in Western theatrical dance, no adequate means to record masterpieces existed until the twentieth century and thus most works from the past have been lost. In response to the literacy problem in dance, a number of systems have been developed in the past five centuries to record human movement, but most of these have failed to be practical under rigorous working conditions. Only a few have attracted substantial professional interest. The difficulty is that a dance notation must capture on paper a precise record, at

A graphics editor for benesh movement notation

This paper describes an interactive computerized editor for Benesh Movement Notation that aids in the preparation of dance scores on a medium resolution colour display. Benesh Movement Notation is a two-dimensional system for recording human movement in three dimensions of space which has been successfully used in the preparation of scores for a wide repertoire of dances. The preparation and revision of Benesh scores is a lengthy and error-prone process which interactive editing techniques can greatly facilitate. We describe the current state and future extensions of a prototype editing system in which all user interaction is based on a menu-driven scheme using a graphics tablet. Extensive visual cues including iconic trackers and semantic information are provided at all times. Both user and system initiated dialogues are supported. This system has served as a testbed for a variety of man-machine interaction studies, allowing us to transfer the wealth of experience with interactive text editing to a related task: the preparation of dance scores. The project has given us a better understanding of the issues involved in implementing an effective user-interface.

Animating the dance archives

Dance notation systems such as Labanotation provide a means to record the scores that are necessary for dance reconstruction and archival recording. To make Labanotation scores more accessible to dancers, choreographers and researchers the LabanDancer system has been developed to translate Labanotation scores recorded in the LabanWriter editor into 3-d human figure animations. The challenges involved in developing this translator are discussed.