Haptic Experiments: Kinaesthetic Empathy and Non-Sighted Dance Audiences

This project explores how the innovative combination of existing motion tracking and haptic technologies can support non-sighted audience members to experience viscerally the movements performed by dancers during live dance performances. In this way, such audience members might achieve a deeper emotional engagement with the choreographic works they attend. The project builds on existing recent research on the concept of kinaesthetic empathy. This refers to how sighted audience members respond kinaesthetically, yet in culturally specific manners, to the movements they watch, and how this might trigger associations between the movements they watch and their personal experiences of such movements.

The project combines affordable and reasonably accessible technologies, such as the toy Kinect to track the motion of the dancers, and a specifically built haptic pad supported by miniscule vibrotactile motors. These motors can produce a repertoire of vibrations of different intensities and speeds across different areas of the pad, thus providing a mapping of the changes of the dynamic qualities of the performance event. Non-sighted users will be invited to explore with their fingers this haptic landscape (in a similar way that they do when reading Braille). This approach has been designed as an equivalent to how sighted audiences use their eyes to explore the performance space in order to capture the dance performance as it unfolds through time.

Haptic technology which supports tactile devices is increasingly employed for the visually impaired to assist, negotiate, understand and investigate their immediate surroundings. Tactile devices engage users through their sense of touch, by combining tactile perception with kinaesthetic sensing (i.e., the position, placement, and orientation) through appropriate haptic interfaces. However todate this technology has not been used to assist access of visually impaired persons to movement-related events and spectacles, such as dance performances, or sports events. A small number of dance companies have used verbal descriptions of the movement activities, however this is very limited, due to language restrictions and because it interferes with the musical accompaniment of the performance.

In this scoping study the basic principles of extracting movement parameters from motion tracking data and mapping them on the vibrotactile pad will be examined to unable future research which will involve more sophisticated collection and transmission of movement information. The study will include experimental workshops with non-sighted participants, and the development of a small network of interested parties, both academic and non-academic, involving groups of visually impaired users, organisations for the support of visually impaired, relevant industry and funders. This network will be constituted in the final phase of the project to maximise opportunities for varied feedback and identification of resources for the future development of this scoping study into a fully fledged research project.

This project draws from the potential of current technologies to offer much wider access to the aesthetic experience of dance performances for visually impaired audience members, and simultaneously challenges assumptions about how audiences receive dance performances, which might encourage choreographers to expand their working methods. It also seeks to stimulate new developments in the use of haptic technology for the visually impaired both in relation to their access to dance and other movement-related activities, such as sports activities.

Direct beneficiaries of this research project would include:
- Visually impaired populations.
- Theatres, charitable and public venues that showcase activities such as dance - other show extravaganzas and performance attractions will be able to provide both increased and, more importantly, enhanced access to the VI population and their social groups

How will they benefit?

This project has the potential to contribute to the nation's health, welfare and culture by seeking to make accessible to visually impaired members of dance audiences the visceral aspects of the aesthetic experience of watching dance performances, which are otherwise completely inaccessible to them.

The research will facilitate both increased and more meaningful experiences of live performance and cultural events for the VI and their social groups in theatres and the public arena. The device will also allow the VI audience to enter and engage with a new creative process whereby they are active in deciding which aspects of the dynamic haptic landscape they choose to explore with their fingertips. The VI do receive instruction in orientation and mobility however this experience is limited to functional as opposed to free and expressive whole body movement. The haptic experience they will receive when accessing the device has the potential to allow them to further understand the dynamics of expressive movement and also the dynamic relationship between two or more dancing bodies. Similarly the kinaesthetic empathy which might be experienced by visually impaired users through the use of the prototypical haptic device, which will be developed in this project will allow the VI to explore new ways to understand how the body expresses and communicates through movement. This new understanding may in turn improve their personal orientation, mobility and quality of life. The fact that the device needs no technical or specific language competence means that there are no limitations to its use throughout the lifespan and neither are there barriers through language backgrounds.

The UK is a pioneer in providing access to cultural, social and educational opportunities for disabled, vulnerable and deprived communities, as well as promoting various forms of disability art. This project will contibute to maintaining and expanding this reputation, thus fostering the economic competitiveness of the UK.

Although visually impaired communities are relatively small in numbers, this does not mean that the benefits of this project will only affect these communities. Visually impaired populations, and completely non-sighted people in particular, have other skills, such as a highly developed sense of touch. Therefore working with such participants can lead to discoveries about the nature and potential of the sense of touch, which can benefit sighted people as well as non-sighted, and which would be normally very difficult (or even impossible) to access through working with sighted people.

Indirect beneficiaries of the research would include:

- Sporting venues and sports associations. There is clearly potential for the technology to be adapted and refined for use at sports events
- Dance companies and choreographers will benefit from the fact that their work is accessible to increased and more diverse audiences. Feedback from the experience of the VI audience may also generate information that has potential to inform future choreographic and performance practices.