-
Shared Minds Dimensionality (performance) Thesis Video in Dumbo New Portraits Synthetic Architectures Reconstructing Lost Spaces Web Art as Site
yilin ye
About
Portfolio
GitHub
yilin ye
About
Portfolio
GitHub
Week 5— 7
Final Projection—Embodiment in House Vol.1. a collective movement project
WIP Video here (to be more edited)
“dance is a universal language”
This project use MoCap as a way to experiment, whether there are similarities and differences in how dancers across different cultural backgrounds embody the music and express themselves. I’ve been wanted to pursue this project since 2023, as my undergrad anthropology thesis and visual ethnography work is related to house dance, a culture/ scene that shaped me so much.
Vol.1., performed by: Soukeyna Abott, Byron Cox, Jinlin He, Guangmin Shen, Linda Wang.
Production
I hosted two sessions, one in the morning with 2 dancers and one in the evening with 3 dancers. (with shoot plan below)
Getting the stickers to all the dancers by myself is a bit challenging, as well as creating avatar/ characters.
But it all worked out
Post-production
-
Motive to MotionBuilder
First we retrieve the avatar that I built in Ready Player Me, downloaded as glb and exported as a fbx file through unreal, so that I could use it in MotionBuilder. A lot of errors occurred when trying to import the motion data in MotionBuilder. After putting the avatar in, selecting “hip” and all branches, dragging “character” to characterize the avatar, the new avatar would appear, but in an extremely small scale, not snapped onto the character. Even if moving, the animation is completely off and different than how it actually was shown in Motive. We tried various other avatars to see if it’s the problem with the avatar, but all the takes during that day would appear in this weird way.
Eventually, we think there might be something wrong with the Export from Motive. So we opened Motive, solved all the TAK files and exported all the takes again. Repeated the steps mentioned above in MotionBuilder, everything finally worked out. It took a LONGGG time to solve this problem and to know which step went wrong, but I learned the lesson through this process.
In Motion Builder, I then created 5 characters for each one of my dancers. I choose the 5 takes, of them each individually freestyle to the song “El Camino Part 2”, since this is what I want to experiment within the final composition for this class. I exported them together in the fbx file.
- MotionBuilder to Unreal
Essentially, the fbx file that I exported contains 5 files in total when I open it in Motionbuilder; but it’s only showing the first one when I import in Unreal. To troubleshoot, I tried to export the fbx files individually from MotionBuilder, but in Unreal it keep showing an error in import, saying “Animation Length length 116.816 is not compatible with import frame-rate 30fps. The animation has to be frame-border aligned.”
To solve this, I tried slightly editing the ending of each animation sequence, and exported individually again. After this time, they are all successfully imported in Unreal.
- Camera in Unreal
I also experimented a little bit with the AI generated 3D characters on Meshy, but did not get anything that’s very close to what I want. You could see the screenshot below.
with the help of my production team, I learned how to add cameras and create sequences in Unreal Engine.
From using Cine Camera Actor, pilot it to the screen and let it follow the character, and then re-adjust the focus. I also learned how to add different animations in the timeline, how to switch between cameras on the timeline, how to change the length of the working timeline range, how to adjust the settings or add movement to the camera, etc. It has been super helpful, and intuitive for the goal that I wanted to achieve in the beginning —- putting animations that come from different players, into the same body/ avatar and let them all dance in the same body!
workflow Recap:
1. Pre-production
- Proposal
- shoot plan & callsheet
2. Production
- Optitrack Setup, calibration
- Motion Capture, multiple takes individual rounds takes, group rounds/ cypher takes
3. Post- production
-
Tracking data from Motive into Motionbuilder
- Motionbuilder to create character(s) and put into avatar
- Motionbuilder to Unreal Engine
- Unreal Engine, scene, lighting, camera & filmming
Week 3— 4
Movement Study //Pre-Production
Equipment: Optitrack Motion Capture suits, wand for calibration and setup
I will also collaborate with movement artists and am flexible with the shoot plan depending on their input, to ensure the accuracy and cultural sensitivity of the project.
Note: this is a tentative shoot plan, time and duration are estimated, and is open to change according to specific shoot date/ availability of movement artist & the space. Ideally, multiple movement artists could come in the same session. I will create a call-sheet for each specific shoot.
Week 2
Design: Context Setting & Character
My character would not be mainly dancing in any specific real life context — I’m thinking of some abstract context that would reflect the texture/ mood of the music and dance. For example, a space-like world, a water-like world, etc. It might also start from a club-like environment, and transform into the feeling-inspired abstract world.
With the start of being in the club, I wish to emphasize the origin of the dance form— how it is a club dance and came from all the styles of dancers coming together and dancing to house music. Yet, since all the dancers I’m inviting are coming from various cultural backgrounds & countries, I think that the more abstract spaces would be a better fit for the goal — to combine the dancers together and experiment with the similarities and differences in their movement expression. The abstract spaces could also highlight the FEELINGs expressed by the dancer (and interpreted by me).
For the similar reason, I also design the character in a more abstract way— I don’t want it to be too representative for any specific image – hopefully more gender neutral. If possible I wish to experiment with forms such as particles/ waves, etc, instead of the hyper-realistic corporeal body.
The ethnographic research method is mainly participant observation. As part of the NYC house dance community, I’ve been and am still going to parties, sessions, meeting dancers from different generations.
Week 1
Topic, and My Story
Embodiment of House
- use MoCap as a way to experiment, whether there are similarities and differences in how dancers across different cultural backgrounds embody the music and express themselves.
From a form of resistance and an expression of “ the voice of the unheard” by the black communities in south Bronx NYC in the 1970s, to becoming a global sensation that is loved and practiced by people from different backgrounds and countries, hip-hop (freestyle) dance forms and the meanings and interpretations around it have shifted greatly over time and through spaces. My personal experience of engaging with hip-hop dance styles, house specifically, freestyling and cyphering in different countries coupled with my studies in anthropology, sociology, and media studies furthered my interest in learning how the relationship between the body and space is articulated and reworked in different cultural contexts.
In this class, I wish to explore further about how factors, from cultural background to lived experiences, influence and take shape in each individual dancer’s freestyle under the same style of dance, “house.”
I would ask 3-5 house dancers from different backgrounds/countries but do similar hip-hop dance style (house) to dance to the same 1-2 songs and motion capture their freestyle movement. Later on, through visual making, I would aim to use the avatar’s appearance to obscure the original appearance of the dancers. This mocap project is inspired by the idea that “dance could be the universal language” for people who even come from different countries. To be noted, I would also conduct a follow-up interview right after the mocap shoot on set, asking about what movements they did during the freestyle if they remember, why and whether that relates to feeling aroused by the music, and compare the answers to see if there are similarities or differences of their embodiment.
Through juxtaposing dancers from different backgrounds dancing to the same music, the project aims to experiment, whether the dancer’s cultural background and habitus are visible through their freestyle dance moves, and what is the relationship between the dancers’ identities and their embodiment through movements.
My Story: when I met my House
Movement has been a large part of my life.
I’ve been dancing since I was very little, in kindergarten. As I tried (and am still trying) across different styles throughout the years, in different cultural contexts and in various forms, dance’s meaning for me has always been changing as well. Starting with a more performance-oriented group dancing, I was trained in ballet as well as being exposed to some other traditional Chinese dance movements. Around last year of high school, I started more choreography-focused dance from K-pop to Jazz Funk to some Hiphop choreography.
In my first year of college, I took a dance studies course called Hip Hop: Dancing Diaspora from the Local to the Global. At the time, my experience with street-style dance was mainly through K-pop; Through reading and seminar discussions, we explored different styles within hip hop, including breaking, popping & locking, house, waacking, and voguing. It was my first real introduction to the history, origins, and cultural significance of hip hop, the start of this global sensation, as well as being aware of the cultural appropriation v.s. appreciation.
So I started my street-style journey after that class. Because of the pandemic, I went back home to China for around a year, when I started to take classes at studios — obsessed with waacking, learned some popping and hip-hop, also a bit of voguing and house. After coming back to the U.S. in 2021, I got more into our college’s hip hop class. Even though the classes were in a college dance studio, my teacher, my mentor, Kyle Justsole Clar, has been bringing the culture and history into every lesson – the context, the whys, the conversation and exchange. I also barely miss the parties, Soleful at the University City close to philly, that he has been hosting for years.
As I studied abroad in London, traveled around countries, and went back home to China, I have met so many people through house dance. I met people and got into the community, but also FELT something so different. Dance has become such a different thing for me at this moment– from only knowing how to do choreography, from focusing on performing for the other and following the rules and expectations, to knowing how to freestyle, exploring from within, seeing what my body have already have, figuring out what is the thing that I uniquely want to say. It’s truly a long but transformative process, still ongoing.
My undergrad anthropology senior project is around, Hip-Hop Dance, Cultural Flow, and the Embodied Experience within Physical and Virtual Space. In the process of researching for this visual ethnography project, my overarching question was, how do hip-hop dance forms (house) and its circulation/exchange help us understand the relationship between the body and space, in the physical cyphers? I was intrigued by this feeling of “blackout state”, the kind of high-feeling, during house cyphers, and also mentioned during the interviews.
While I interviewed and filmed at both dance spaces in Beijing and Philly, I interviewed six different dancers. I also planned the motion capture shoot as a potential part of the project, but due to the limited access to resources, I was only able to conduct one session. But I believe the final project in this course would be hugely informed by this original plan.