Body-Part Motion Synthesis System and Its Evaluation for Discovery Learning of Dance

This paper reports an assessment of the feasibility and the practicality of a creation support system for contemporary dance elearning. We developed a Body-part Motion Synthesis System (BMSS) that allows users to create choreographies by synthesizing body-part motions to increase the effect of learning contemporary dance choreography. Short created choreographies can be displayed as animation using 3DCG characters. The system targets students who are studying contemporary dance and is designed to promote the discovery learning of contemporary dance. We conducted a series of evaluation experiments for creating contemporary dance choreographies to verify the learning effectiveness of our system as a support system for discovery learning. As a consequence of experiments with 26 students who created contemporary dances, we verified that BMSS is a helpful creation training tool to discover new choreographic methods, new dance movements, and new awareness of their bodies.