The objective of this assignment was to make a motion capture dance video that represented my relationship with technology. During the summer of 2019, I spent three months working in Yellowstone National Park with no cell service or Wi-Fi. Though it sounds scary to many, it was an amazing and refreshing experience. I wanted my dancers to tell my story. I worked directly with an improvisation dancer and explained to him my theme and vision. He was dressed in a motion capture suit and performed his piece in the motion capture studio at Western Michigan University where the dance was digitally recorded. I took these dance clips and manipulated them in the software Unity where I also edited the environment, lights, camera angles and movements, and audio.
The dance starts with four stylized figures performing identical movements while walking in a circle. They are perfect and uniform for the first few rounds referring to how technology has helped us improve. They are functional beings and are on a path to achieve great things. Their actions are so in sync that they seem to be robots. However, the dancers begin to glitch. This represents how the pressures to be flawlessly efficient can harm us as people, hurt our health and self esteem. They begin to move faster and faster until they break away from their uniform march and turn away from the circle. The pressures from life trigger a breakdown, which we can all relate to. In the midst of this the dancers find the courage to rip away their devices. One by one, they unplug into a new environment; just the Earth and their thoughts. The final dancer finally sees himself as he truly is, a human. He forgets about the harsh expectations from his peers and realizes that there is a whole entire world out there that he can explore and learn from. He prances around looking and reaching at all of the beautiful and exciting sights. He is ecstatic. The lights slowly fade as his sequence ends.
