Tia Bennett
Motion Lines
I did ballet until I was twelve. What I remember most was the 10 minute improvisations we did as warm-ups. Being a very reserved and anxious person, it was difficult for me to improvise to the music and move freely. I always sat out and watched everyone else improvise, completely absorbed in watching these imperfect, yet very natural, movements.
Motion Lines stems from the idea of wanting to capture and understand these improvisations. It is an analysis of movement, combining motion-capture and dance improvisation to create abstract impressions of five different dancers all dancing to the same song. Using 2D and 3D animation, Motion Lines attempts to re-create the likeness of these dancers.
While the human shapes come in and out of view, their likeness remains, placing the dancers back into their bodiless, digital performances alongside their own words. The hopes with this project is to create a sense of who each dancer is without seeing their limbs, faces or initial performance, and to highlight the uniqueness found in inherent movements.
Special thanks to Brittany Beheshti for technical support and to our wonderful dancers, Zuri Skeete, Sophia Abbas, Elvina Raharja, Rumi Jeraj and Denis Rugema for their movements. This project and the equipment used was supported by the FCAD Creative Technology Lab. Music provided by the London Dance Collective.