ABSTRACT
How can performers detect and potentially respond to the reactions of a live audience? Audience members' physical movements provide one possible source of information about their engagement with a performance. Using a case study of the dance performance "Frames" that took place in Theatre Royal in Glasgow during March 2015, we examine patterns of audience movement during contemporary dance performances and explore how they relate to the dancer's movements. Video recordings of performers and audience were analysed using computer vision and data analysis techniques extracting facial expression, hand gestural and body movement data. We found that during the performance audiences move very little and have predominantly expressionless faces while hand gestures seem to play a significant role in the way audiences respond. This suggests that stillness i.e. the absence of motion may be an indicator of engagement.
- Barry, E. 2013. Wild Applause, Secretly Choreographed Designated Cheering Spectators Thrive at the Bolshoi Theater. {ONLINE} Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/arts/dance/designated-cheering-spectators-thrive-at-the-bolshoi-theater.html {Accessed 05 December 14}.Google Scholar
- Borenstein, G. 2013. OpenCV for Processing. {ONLINE} Available at: https://github.com/atduskgreg/opencv-processing {Accessed 05 December 14}.Google Scholar
- Calvo-Merino, B. et al., 2005. Action observation and acquired motor skills: an FMRI study with expert dancers. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y.: 1991), 15(8), pp. 1243--9.Google Scholar
- Gardair, C., Healey, P.G.T. & Welton, M., 2011. Performing places. Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition - C&C '11, p.51. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Christian Kueblbeck and Andreas Ernst: "Face detection and tracking in video sequences using the modified census transformation", Journal on Image and Vision Computing, vol. 24, issue 6, pp. 564--572, 2006, ISSN 0262-8856 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Healey, P.G.T.,Oxley, R., Schober,M., Welton, M., 2009. Engaging Audiences., pp.1--2.Google Scholar
- Katevas, K., Healey, P.G.T. & Harris, M.T., 2015. Robot Comedy Lab: experimenting with the social dynamics of live performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(August), pp.1--9.Google Scholar
- Mann, R.P. et al., 2013. The dynamics of audience applause.Google Scholar
- Schubert, E., Vincs, K. & Stevens, C., 2015. A Quantitative Approach to Analysing Reliability of Engagement Responses to Dance.Google Scholar
- SHORE face detection engine, Fraunhofer Institute. {ONLINE} Available at: http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/bsy/fue/isyst/ {Accessed 05 December 14}.Google Scholar
- Stevens, C, H. Winskel, C. Howell, L-M. Vidal, C. Latimer & J. Milne-Home, 2009. Dance Dialogues: Conversations across cultures, artforms and practicesGoogle Scholar
- Vincs, K., Schubert, E. & Stevens, C., 2009. Measuring Responses to Dance.Google Scholar
- Vincs, K., Stevens, C. & Schubert, E., 2010. Effects of observer experience on continuous measures of engagement with a contemporary dance work. Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science, pp.357--361.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Whitley, A. 2015. Interviewed by Pat Healey and Lida Theodorou at Queen Mary University of London.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Exploring Audience Behaviour During Contemporary Dance Performances
Recommendations
Exploring Audience Response in Performing Arts with a Brain-Adaptive Digital Performance System
Special Issue on IUI 2016 HighlightsAudience response is an important indicator of the quality of performing arts. Psychophysiological measurements enable researchers to perceive and understand audience response by collecting their bio-signals during a live performance. However, how the ...
Boiling Mind - A Dataset of Physiological Signals during an Exploratory Dance Performance
AHs '21: Proceedings of the Augmented Humans International Conference 2021The relationship between audience and performers is crucial to what makes live events so special. The aim of this work is to develop a new approach amplifying the link between audiences and performers. Specifically, we explore the use of wearable ...
Three-Dimensional Visualization of Movement Qualities in Contemporary Dance
MOCO '18: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Movement and ComputingAnalyzing and documenting contemporary dance movement data has proven to be a very difficult task due to the vast existence of styles and aesthetics which are characteristic of each individual choreographer. Indeed, identifying movement qualities with ...
Comments