Digital Dance Archives (DDA): cross-collection interactivity and enhanced user engagement with dance resources

The Digital Dance Archives project (DDA) will disseminate multimedia archive material on dance and choreography via a public internet web portal to enhance user engagement and encourage interactivity. Three parties will work on two distinct digital developments using existing archival resources at Surrey (the National Resource Centre for Dance) and Coventry (the Siobhan Davies digital archive). These are the Department of Dance, Film and Theatre Studies /NRCD and the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) at Surrey and ICELab, School of Art and Design at Coventry. Two inter-related digital pilots will work across the DDA project: producing a searchable platform based on visual content, and an interactive tool supporting online learning and collaboration.

The DDA project aims to unify previously disparate archives under a sustainable digital platform (with the future potential to add further archives). The main functions of the web portal will be to:

1. Stream the DDA's visual content to a diverse range of users via the web. This content will take the form of images and video of dance performances, and objects (e.g. costumes) related to those performances.

2. Enable both directed search, and the browsing / discovery of DDA content via a novel and intuitive search interface.

3. Facilitate online interaction and collaboration, by building and sharing virtual scrapbooks of archival content.

Interaction will be enhanced through two technological innovations unique to this proposal:

We will enable 'visual search' of the archive using content based image retrieval (CBIR) technologies. Content will be indexed not only using traditional text search of meta-data tags, but also using visual appearance. For example, a user may search for similar instances of a photographed costume or object within archived performances - or search for 'similar' dances, or dances containing a particular twirl or gesture. In doing so we bridge between different multimedia formats, and broaden the indexing beyond meta-data terms associated with dance content (no additional meta-data is manually generated to enable this novel search).

A novel interactive tool will enable 'virtual scrapbooking' of content. The tool provides users with the facility to annotate, create and curate responses to the digital collections, thus providing a potential network/community for exchange of ideas. Using Web 2.0 technologies, this 'learning tool' will demonstrate how dance archival content can be used generatively to enable users to develop personalised interpretations of dance content.

In summary, the DDA project represents an accessible and sustainable solution to digital archiving of the performing arts. It will provide a single point of contact for interacting with archived dance, leveraging unique technologies that enable new routes to content discovery, learning and collaborative research.

The collaborating Archives, Researchers and Institutions of the DDA recognise the value of producing a convergence of content and increasing interoperability between digital networks as a way to progressively yield new value for dance resources. (Technology Strategy Board report, 2009)

The DDA proposes to harness the wide spread public interest in dancing, choreography and dance history, as demonstrated in numbers attending events organised by Dance Umbrella and Dance UK and the popular success of dance via television, outdoor performance and the internet. By establishing social networking capabilities via the DDA, and a visual retrieval system, the information exchange between university-based resources and home-based users with interest in dance, can have wider social impact.

The DDA will also yield better interaction from the investment of the AHRC in individual dance and technology projects by enhancing their visual and interactive capabilities. It therefore aspires to provide a visual platform for piloting and encouraging creative, and multiple, modes of interaction with moving image information via the internet.

The end users could be students, teachers, artists, audiences but the dissemination and impact strategies will be designed to test user interest, and share the research and support for using the archives and tools during and beyond the life of the funded project for the DDA.

An Advisory Group will advise on the most effective design and promotional strategy to support and reach users across recreational and educational settings. If the DDA provides a lively interactive and multi-dimensional' one-stop' portal for dance, similar to other major search engines, then we will have enhanced the social and cultural impact of dance resources to new communities of interest.

Enhanced impact is likely to increase an interest in seeing and participating in dance (much like the distribution of music online increases audiences for the live event). This is important not only to increase audiences for dance, and thus the economic impact of the creative industries, but also because it can improve health and well-being through participation, as well as adding value to an understanding of a rich and living cultural heritage.