Moment by Moment: Creating Movement Sketches with Camera Stillframes

While mobile authoring applications are proliferating, choreographic tools that support the generation and transformation of user-created movement `samples' are less readily available. iDanceForms is a novel mobile choreographic application that generates unique movement choices through a camera stillframing technique to provoke movement catalysts. In keeping with the principles of whole body interaction (and principles of `defamiliarization'), the design of iDanceForms supports opportunities for surprise, unexpected movement choices and meaning-making. This paper presents data collected from an observational study of choreographers using iDanceForms. In the study we found that choreographers appropriated the intended functionality of iDanceForms to create highly individualized and unexpected movement sequences. They found inspiration in exploring unexpected framing of form and content, which resulted in creative explorations that produced unique movement possibilities provided by the system. Drawing from our observations we discuss possible roles that sensor-enabled mobile devices could play in movement generation through personal meaning-making, creative choreographic strategies and discovery, and in provoking whole body interaction through principles of `defamiliarization' in the context of HCI.