04.12.2020

Miguel Escobar Varela (National University of Singapore)

A stylometry of motion? Towards the quantitative comparison of movement in theatre and dance

There is a growing abundance of audiovisual records of theatre and dance performances, rehearsals, and classes. The availability of these materials opens a tantalizing possibility: using computational methods, researchers could compare the styles of different performers, groups, and traditions over time and across geographic locations. In this talk, I will offer a brief overview of the problems of generating comparable datasets and developing adequate measurements. But I will also describe some incipient work in this area, and explain how this type of work hints at new avenues for the digital study of theatre and dance as movement-based art forms.

PARTICIPATION:

The meeting will take place live at Zoom at 1 pm:

The first part of the meeting (the lecture) will be recorded to be later uploaded to our YouTube channel. While we will only be recording the slides and speaker’s audio, we kindly ask that those of you who do not want to risk accidental sharing of your personal image turn off the cameras and turn them back on in the second part of the meeting, a discussion, which will not be recorded.