DANCE

Multimodal dataset of full-body movement qualities: Lightness and Fragility

Multimodal synchronized recordings of short dance improvisations, i.e., full body movements aiming to display different expressive qualities. In total we collected 150 segments by 13 participants. The data consists of 3D accelerometers data, video, respiration (audio, microphone), and simple physiological signals. This dataset can be freely used for research purposes, with the only request to cite the following papers describing and using this dataset:

Niewiadomski, R., Mancini, M., Cera, A., Piana, S., Canepa, C., Camurri, A.
Does embodied training improve the recognition of mid-level expressive movement qualities sonification?
in Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, ISBN/ISSN: 1783-8738, Dec, 2018. doi: 10.1007/s12193-018-0284-0
Full paper available here...

and:

Vaessen, M.J., Abassi, E., Mancini, M., Camurri, A., de Gelder, B.
Computational Feature Analysis of Body Movements Reveals Hierarchical Brain Organization
in Cerebral Cortex, Oxford University Press, v. 28, n. 10, pp. bhy228, ISBN/ISSN: 1047-3211, Oct, 2018
Full paper available here...

The dataset has been recorded by University of Genoa at the Casa Paganini-InfoMus research centre of DIBRIS, in the EU Project ICT DANCE n 645553 (dance.dibris.unige.it).

Task

We recorded a dataset of short dance performances containing full-body movements of two expressive qualities: Lightness and Fragility (see the above mentioned papers).

Protocol: first, dancers were instructed with the definitions of the two expressive qualities. Next, the dancers were asked to perform an improvised choreography containing movements that, in the opinion of the dancer, expressed convincingly the requested quality. The dancers had different dance backgrounds (classic, dance, pop, contemporary dance), and are at an amateur level of dance experience. They performed five repetitions of each expressive quality, each trial had a duration of 1 minute. From each 1min trial, we extracted segments in which the quality was best expressed, with the help of dance experts.

Setup Hardware and Data

We recorded (synchronized) data from the following devices:

• 5 IMU sensors (x-OSC) placed on the dancer’s body limbs; the data is captured at 50 frames per second; each frame consists of 9 values: (x, y, z) of accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer;
• 2 video cameras (1280x720, at 50fps);
• 2 EMG sensors placed on the dancer’s forearms (MYO); data captured at 50 frames per second, each frame consists of 8 signals;
• 1 wireless microphone (Mono, 48 kHz) placed close to the dancer’s nose and mouth, to record the audio of respiration.

Data were recorded and synchronized using the EyesWeb XMI platform. Synchronization of data streams is obtained by SMPTE time-codes.

The Data Segments

The recorded video streams were evaluated by dance experts and expressive movement analysis experts. For every trial, they identified segments of about 10s each corresponding to a uniform, coherent sequence of movements expressing the requested quality. For each dancer and each expressive quality, between 5 and 6 segments were chosen.

Below we present some examples of the videos and data. The whole dataset can been seen and download from here.

Dancer 1:

Dancer 2:

Dancer 3:

Dancer 4:

Dancer 5:

Dancer 6:

Dancer 8:

Dancer 9:

Dancer 10:

Dancer 11:

Dancer 12:

Dancer 13:

Dancer 14:

More about the data formats used can be found here.

Ranking

Five raters watched the 150 segments resulting from the segmentation. They observed each video segment and they were asked to rate the global level of Fragility and Lightness they perceived by using two independent 5-point Likert scales (from 0 to 4).

If you need more info about the Experts evaluation, please download the following: Excel file.

Video fragments with SMPTE code

We recorded video fragments data with SMPTE code in the audio track, for synchrionization with the other sensor channels:

Date of recording	Link to download page	Description	Quality video files count
2017-01-13		Total video files: N. 20	Lightness quality video files: N. 10 Fragility quality video files: N. 10
2017-01-14		Total video files: N. 21	Lightness quality video files: N. 11 Fragility quality video files: N. 10
2017-01-18		Total video files: N. 36	Lightness quality video files: N. 21 Fragility quality video files: N. 15
2017-01-25		Total video files: N. 51	Lightness quality video files: N. 18 Fragility quality video files: N. 20
2017-02-01		Total video files: N. 24	Lightness quality video files: N. 12 Fragility quality video files: N. 12