Started ballroom dancing at the age of 10 (about 12 year old).

I remember my dad introducing me as a ballroom dancer to his friends and they seemed to have the same reaction. They would say, “Ballroom dancer? Your gunna get all the ladies doing that?” And that sounded pretty good to my teenage self, so I decided to stick with it.

Since then I’ve been able to turn dancing into a competitive career. and Its helped me with many things in my life.

It’s helped me to get out of my introverted shell, think for myself and

and find my lady. :) It’s overall been an incredibly fun activity for me to do. So I wanted to give others the opportunity to experience dancing in a similar way.

How can design influence people to dance?

Bulk of my process was researching and problem solving. I knew music also had to be incorporated since it’s at the base of what makes people move. I spoke with many instructors around the area and country that had a similar issue. They would say, “Is there a way to simplify music to a beat, so that beginners could learn timing rather than listening to the lyrics.” So I tried my hand at this.

When I first started, I had the initial idea of creating letter forms from the positions of the body during ballroom dancing. But while researching I grew interest in motion capture. And to get a clean capture of a couple dancing you need a room filled 360° with sensors and 2 different colored suit and much more high end tech stuff. So I shifted my research.

I started looking into interactive projection experiences. And created an idea to make it easy for beginning ballroom students to learn timing, beginner bronze steps and have fun while doing this. So mixing this idea with interactive projections, I was going to create a 1in thick plexiglass box able to be danced on.

But I didn't have the funding to create it, at this point in my life.

So I did more research and found this.

It showed an easy way to do motion capture and this is where What’s Yo Move? comes in.

WHAT’SYOMOVE?

What’s Yo Move? is an example of recent technology and software advances. How these advances can be used to comprehend movement beyond what the naked eye can see. It’s used to study motion, stimulate thinking and most importantly to have fun while doing this.

So I created a Promo Video: To spark interest of course, but also showing the process it took to get to the final piece.

From the motion capture studies, I created a collection of 3D animations paired with the dissected music I was working on.

THNX!

How can design influence people to dance?