I’m not going to lie — I truly had no interest in the motion capture induction or process, and only planned to attend because learning about these sorts of things is included in our tuition.

And then I opened up the XR + Games orientation and saw something I didn’t expect.

Dance.

I had always assumed everything in the XR space was heady and tech-heavy, with no opportunities for actual physicalization. But completing the online prerequisites showed me that XR is far more expansive, and that it even includes the art form I love most.

I knew immediately that I wanted to get into the suit during our induction in Battersea (which I did!).

It was so cool to see the trackers placed on my body and then watch my movements appear on the screen as I moved through the space. For the demo, they had me perform a series of exercises used both as a warm-up and for calibrating the body-point trackers.

And then I got to do something very special. The technicians asked if I wanted to do anything “fun,” and I very quickly said yes. I performed a sequence from my most recent show, Roots & Leaves. It’s one of my favorite phrases I’ve ever created — full of odd patterns and strange momentum — not because of how it looks, but because of how it feels. Leaning into the elemental qualities of the movement makes it even more powerful.

When I relearned Roots & Leaves earlier this year to create the second rendition of one of my dance projects, I remember being fascinated by how many movement languages I had stitched together: hip-hop, Tae-kwon-do, ballet, contemporary. Body halves, groundedness and lightness, quickness and thick velocity — all integrated into one phrase.

All that to say: I now have an animation sequence of this phrase that I love so much, and it feels incredibly special.

Since then, ideas have been bubbling about how I could animate dance, including phrasework from past pieces, and use RCA’s resources to archive these works in an entirely new medium, giving them new lifeblood. I’m imagining how I might translate my continual explorations of nature into digital bodies and have the “output” be something beyond a live performance. All of this is extremely exciting to me.

Needless to say, I’m pumped to start using the motion capture spaces more next term.