FAQ

While we would encourage applications from pre-made teams who already have a dance partner and creative technologist in place, we would stress that this fund is not directed at people who are already practicing in this area of motion-captured performance.

We aim to reach people who can see the potential of this kind of practice – providing them with skills and partnerships to assist them to start creating work in this way.

If you already have a pre-made team in place, we would recommend making one unique application and give more details about the different individuals in the team.

Each residency team will receive two suits, so that they can create work independently. This means you will need to be at least two dancers – a duo, small group, collective, or company. If you are applying as a solo choreographer, you will need to be working with at least two other dancers, and this should be specified in the application.

We are unlikely to consider applications from solo dancers, unless the idea is very strong.

Project teams can be formed of geographically close people or can be between two or more locations. We would however advise against sending equipment across borders as import duty would apply, and there is a certain amount of risk of loss or damage to hardware that would potentially stop the project in its tracks (sadly we do not have spares).

From our own experience, we know that the dance partner needs to creatively lead, determining the need for specific bodily expression. However, there is inevitably a feedback loop.

The application should express a single idea or vision. You can describe each of the team members separately.

Staying true to the funding body’s specific agenda, in line with UNESCO’s ‘Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development’, we are particularly looking for projects which incorporate diversity, accessibility, and/or non-mainstream cultural practices (within this field of practice). We are also looking for globally-distributed projects to connect with each other remotely.

We will plan training events in the week commencing the 4th – 8th April (Monday – Friday), and this planning will reasonably take into account time differences. Attendance at these events is imperative as it is core to the residency, and certain sessions will not be able to be repeated.

We would like to see a variety of styles, practices, and crossovers with existing practices between projects. We do specify that we would like to reach people who have not engaged with motion capture performance before. If you, as an individual, already do this kind of work, then your application should be focussed on working with a group of people who have not (and ideally who also fulfil one of our other noted selection priorities – see above)

The suit is the Perception Neuron 3. https://neuronmocap.com/perception-neuron-3-motion-capture-system made by Noitom, our project partner. This is the only system that can be used with our mocap streamer tool at the moment.

Each residency team will receive two suits, so that they can create work independently. This means you will need to be at least two dancers – a duo, small group, collective, or company. We have 10 suits in total, 2 suits per team.

While only two people will be able to perform at one time, the suits can be used to record, replay, and in the creative development process, with a group of dancers.

We do not only expect to be funding established dance companies, but there does need to be proven track record of producing high-quality work. All styles will be considered, and the more marginalised within this field of digital dance, the better. We will also consider other non-dance disciplines that are specifically about body movement expression.

Our priority is accessibility, so absolutely yes. We can also support development and experimentation from domestic spaces. Our recommendation for using a studio space in grounded in the need for an expansive space for bodily expression, to mitigate magnetic interference with the motion capture, and to have a strong internet connection.

At the moment the dancer specifically needs to use a modest spec PC (laptop or desktop) to connect to the Perception Neuron motion capture suit through their proprietary software. The makers of the system Noitom have advised us that partitioning your Mac drive and running Windows with Bootcamp/Parallels is an option that many of their Mac users opt for.

The creative technologist can be using Mac or PC to receive the data from the dancer, and will need a more powerful machine for the real-time generative rendering of outputs.

The Mocap Streamer tool currently works with UDP and WebSockets. There is no current support for OSC but this could be an added feature if it becomes necessary for certain residency projects.

The current version of the Mocap Streamer doesn’t allow streaming into VRchat but we appreciate the benefits it could bring to the VR community and would be open to technologists taking the challenge on.

The suits and pre-rigs are currently designed for normative bodies. One branch of this project, led by Clarice Hilton, who is a Machine Learning & accessibility researcher, will explore how to use the technology for non-normative bodies.

We wouldn’t recommend altering the suits directly as they will lose their guarantee with Noitom.

Funds can be used to pay dancers and creative technologists, as well as hire spaces or equipment for project activities. We would not expect funds to be used to buy hardware such as computers or projectors, as this would limit the scope of the project.

You will nominate a lead for each project who will be accountable for financial decisions and record keeping. Invoices must be provided.

We do not specify hours of work. We would expect something to show and share with other projects at the end of each month.

As experimental research, we do not specify a specific length or even type of project output, we would expect simply some documentation of a meaningful remote interaction between dancers within a virtual space. This could be a performance or installation; live or pre-recorded; visual, aural or haptic: Screen-based, or VR/XR/AR.

We do expect some ‘’behind the scenes’ documentation to be provided for transparency of process – for research purposes.

Alongside performative work, this documentation could also take the form of workshops, rehearsals, or community outreach.