Current Status of Indian Classical Dance Virtual Prototype Project Faridah Noor Mohd Noor 1 *,...

Current Status of Indian Classical Dance Virtual

Prototype Project

Faridah Noor Mohd Noor1*, Selvanathan Narainasamy1, Suhaimi Napis2, Harun Jantrik2 and

Azmir Saifudin Mutalib3. 1University of Malaya, 2Universiti Putra Malaysia, 3Multimedia Development Corporation, Malaysia.

*Deputy Director, Centre for Civilizational Dialogue, University of Malaya

faridahn@um.edu.my, faridahn@gmail.com

Outline

IntroductionVirtual Indian Dance ProjectThe Prototype: Progress reportFuture Direction and Collaboration

Introduction

MalaysiaMulti-cultural and multi-religious countryMelting pot of various ethnic groups

comprised of Malays, Chinese, Indians and indigenous people.

Rich cultural heritage Cross-culture due to assimilation- “New Culture”

eg. Baba/Nyonya, Portugese Descendents Colourful history and bright future

Introduction

Culture involves at least three components: What people think, What they do, and What material products they produce

Source: John H. Bodley, Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System, 1994.

Introduction

What is exactly the definition of Digital Culture or E-Culture?

A Marriage between Culture and Technology

Using computers to manage cultural information

IntroductionWhat is the Purpose and Objective of Digital

Culture / E-Culture?

To “immortalise” and preserve culture for the future generation

With digital repository, archival work of these priceless historical gems can be immortalised for generations to come

Creation of Cyber Heritage

Virtual Indian Dance Project

Reports on the progress that has been made since the last APAN Meeting held in Taipei, August 2005.

How the Project was Initiated

Traditional dances are part of each ethnic cultural heritage

The present generation owes it to the future generation to keep a record with a purpose to preserve and hand down to them how these dances can be performed

Virtual Indian Dance ProjectA collaborative research project to

capture the motions of a Traditional Indian Dance

1. University of Malaya,

2. Universiti Putra Malaysia,

3. Multimedia Development

Corporation, Malaysia. Mr. Ganesan, Malaysia

Bharatnatyam

One of the type of classical Indian danceOriginated from the southern part of India:

Tamilnadu“Subtle and sophisticated dance

Provides spiritual satisfaction to performer and aesthestic experience to the audience

(Saroja V., 1996:2)

“Bharatnatyam”

An acronymn consisting of:

Bhava Expression

Raga Melody

Tala Rhythm

Natyam Dance

Choice of Dance Type for Project

Movements, gestures (hands, facial expressions, eye and eyebrows movements, etc are highly symbolic and means something

Classical and very rich in history Well-documented

The Prototype

Marks the beginning of a continuous chain of collaborative research between the Arts and IT disciplines, in Malaysia at least

The Prototype: Progress report

Made some progress with the prototype Original data from Motion Capture was reused to

make new animated character Converted into Virtual Reality Data for

visualization using CAVE with stereoscopic googles

Eventually, we want to integrate real 3D scanned image of the dancer himself with full costumes

Video clips and images

The Prototype: Progress report

Capturing the Motion Capture Datasets

The Prototype: Progress report

Captured Datasets used to animate a skeleton

The Prototype: Progress report

Captured Datasets re-used to animate a character

The Prototype: Progress report

Captured Datasets re-used to animate a character with moving background

The Prototype: Progress report

The prototype has been converted to 3D virtual reality datasets for viewing on CAVE at Virtual Reality Centre of Multimedia Development Corporation

Some images at the VR Centre, MDC during the test-run

The Prototype: Progress report

Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report

Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report

Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report

Showing the video clip

The Prototype: Progress report

Showing the video clip

The Prototype: Progress report

Showing the video clip to audience wearing googles

The Prototype: Progress report

Showing the video clip to audience

Future Direction and Collaborations

Other projects in the pipeline: Mah Meri Masks Jahut carvings/statues

Museum of Asian Arts, University of

Malaya

BES BIDAN UM84.3

(MIDWIFE)

BES BIDAN UM84.3

(MIDWIFE)

BES BAJANG UM84.7

Masks of Mah Meri

Mah Meri Masks in 3D

Concluding Remarks

Collaboration between the “Culture

partners” and “ICT partners” An understanding of what each partner

is able to do

THANK YOU

TERIMA KASIH