Skip to main content

Creating a Theatrical Experience on a Virtual Stage

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10714))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

This paper describes the use of virtual and augmented reality, combined with motion capture technologies, to produce virtual theatre: live theatrical performance fully realized and experienced in a virtual space. The virtual theatre dance performance Farewell to Dawn, which was presented in Rochester, NY in December 2016, is used to illustrate and explore affordances of these technologies in terms the liveness, perspective, and social presence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 179.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jmg/f2d.

  2. 2.

    A 360 video of the December 2016 performance can be found at https://youtu.be/o5lO_7DFku0.

References

  1. Ascott, R.: Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. University of California Press, Berkeley (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Birdwhistell, R.: Introduction to Kinesics: An Annotation System for Analysis of Body Motion and Gesture. Louisville University Press, Louisville (1952)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Caputo, F., Mc Gowen, V., Geigel, J., Cerqueira, S., Williams, Q., Schweppe, M., Fa, Z., Pembrook, A., Roffe, H.: Farewell to dawn: a mixed reality dance performance in a virtual space. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2016 Posters (SIGGRAPH 2016), pp. 49:1–49:2. ACM, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Couldry, N.: Liveness, reality, and the mediated habitus from television to the mobile phone. Commun. Rev. 7(4), 353–361 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Geigel, J., Schweppe, M.: Motion capture for realtime control of virtual actors in live, distributed, theatrical performances. In: Face and Gesture 2011, pp. 774–779, March 2011

    Google Scholar 

  6. Geigel, J., Schweppe, M., Huynh, D., Johnstone, B.: Adapting a virtual world for theatrical performance. Computer 44(12), 33–38 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Gochfeld, D., Molina, J.: To be with hamlet. In: Di Federico, E., van Houte, N. (eds.) Mixed Reality and the Theatre of the Future: Fresh Perspectives on Arts and New Technologies, pp. 47–55. IETM, Brussels (2017). https://www.ietm.org/en/publications/fresh-perspectives-6-mixed-reality-and-the-theatre-of-the-future

  8. Hall, E.T.: The Hidden Dimension. Doubleday and Company, New York (1966)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Kilteni, K., Groten, R., Slater, M.: The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ. 21(4), 373–387 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Knapp, R.B., Jaimovich, J., Coghlan, N.: Measurement of motion and emotion during musical performance. In: 2009 3rd International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction and Workshops, pp. 1–5, September 2009

    Google Scholar 

  11. Laden, T.M.: Virtual reality and theater come together to a classic David Bowie tune, March 2017. https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/8qbay3/david-bowie-virtual-reality-theater

  12. Lee, K.M.: Presence, explicated. Commun. Theor. 14(1), 27–50 (2004)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Lewis, M.: Bowen virtual theater. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2003 Web Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2003), p. 1. ACM, New York (2003). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/965333.965389

  14. Lombard, M., Ditton, T.: At the heart of it all: the concept of presence. J. Comput. Mediated Commun. 3(2), JCMC321 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Loomis, J.M.: Presence in virtual reality and everyday life: immersion within a world of representation. Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ. 25(2), 169–174 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Löytönen, T.: Emotions in the everyday life of a dance school: articulating unspoken values. Dance Res. J. 40(1), 17–30 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Matsuba, S.N., Roehl, B.: Bottom, thou art translated: the making of VRML dream. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 19(2), 45–51 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Mennecke, B.E., Triplett, J.L., Hassall, L.M., Conde, Z.J., Heer, R.: An examination of a theory of embodied social presence in virtual worlds. Dec. Sci. 42(2), 413–450 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Moynihan, T.: The lion king musical in VR is an incredible experience, November 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/11/lion-king-vr-video/

  20. Neff, M.: Lessons from the arts: what the performing arts literature can teach us about creating expressive character movement. In: Tanenbaum, J., El-Nasr, M.S., Nixon, M. (eds.) Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds, pp. 123–148. ETC Press, Pittsburgh (2014). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2812748.2812758

    Google Scholar 

  21. Ohannessian, K.: Draw me close uses VR, props, and performance to evoke childhood, April 2017. https://uploadvr.com/draw-me-close-childhood/. Accessed 29 Apr 2017

  22. Parker, J.R.: Theater as virtual reality. In: Tanenbaum, J., El-Nasr, M.S., Nixon, M. (eds.) Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds, pp. 151–174. ETC Press, Pittsburgh (2014). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2812748.2812759

    Google Scholar 

  23. Reaney, M.: Virtual scenography: the actor, audience, computer interface. Theatr. Des. Technol. 32, 36–43 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Reason, M.: Archive or memory? The detritus of live performance. New Theatr. Q. (NTQ) 19(1), 82–89 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Reeve, C.: Presence in virtual theater. Presence 9(2), 209–213 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Rowe, K.: Crowd-sourcing Shakespeare: screen work and screen play in second life. Shakespear. Stud. 38, 58–67 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Slater, M., Howell, J., Steed, A., Pertaub, D.P., Garau, M.: Acting in virtual reality. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE 2000), pp. 103–110. ACM, New York (2000). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/351006.351020

  28. Smith, B.D.: Telematic composition. Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign (2011). aAI3503868

    Google Scholar 

  29. Sontag, S.: Film and theatre. Tulane Drama Rev. 11(1), 24–37 (1966)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Stierman, C.: Kinotes: mapping musical scales to gestures in a kinect-based interface for musican expression. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, M.Sc thesis University of Amsterdam (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Sutherland, T.: From (archival) page to (virtual) stage: the virtual vaudeville prototype. Am. Archivist 79(2), 392–416 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Wang, C., Geelhoed, E.N., Stenton, P.P., Cesar, P.: Sensing a live audience. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2014), pp. 1909–1912. ACM, New York (2014). http://doi.acm.org.ezproxy.rit.edu/10.1145/2556288.2557154

  33. Webb, A.M., Wang, C., Kerne, A., Cesar, P.: Distributed liveness: understanding how new technologies transform performance experiences. In: Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW 2016), pp. 432–437. ACM, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Wilson, G.D.: Psychology for Performing Artists. Whurr Publishers, London (2002)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insights, suggestions, and pointers.

Farewell to Dawn is a collaborative effort between the Department of Computer Science, College of Imaging Arts and Science, and the MAGIC Center at RIT along with the Department of Theatre and Dance at Nazareth College. The author would like to extend a special thanks to Andy Phelps, Christopher Egert, and Jennifer Hinton from MAGIC, Heather Roffe from Nazareth, and all of the collaborators listed in the credits below.

This work is partially funded through a seed grant from the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing an Information Sciences at RIT. Thanks to Anne Haake and Pengcheng Shi for their support.

Farewell to Dawn credits:

Dancers: Zhongyuan Fa, Anastasia Pembrook

Choreography: Zhongyuan Fa

Music: Hesham Fouad

Percussion: Peter Ferry

3D Stage Design: Stephen Cerqueira, Quincey Williams, Marla Schweppe

Virtual Stage System: Chirag Chandrakant Salian, Anna Dining, Victoria Mc Gowen, Rasmi Mukula Kapuganti, Felipe Caputo, Joe Geigel

Videography: Anna Dining

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joe Geigel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Geigel, J. (2018). Creating a Theatrical Experience on a Virtual Stage. In: Cheok, A., Inami, M., Romão, T. (eds) Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. ACE 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10714. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_49

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_49

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76269-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76270-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics