Dance of the Sleeping Beauties

Dance of the Sleeping Beauties is a multimedia installation, a motion capture dance project by Esther Ericsson and Simon Alexanderson at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts, 2022.

Dance of the Sleeping Beauties was part of the KTH research project Digital Bodies and NAVET Week.

All puppets was 3D-scanned, with photogrammetry technique, by Esther Ericsson.

Gif animation: 3D-scanned, remodeled and rigged character by Esther. Mefistofeles Puppet Maker: Harro Siegel, Germany, 1930-1950s, Swedish Museum of Performing Arts

Motion Capture recording by Simon Alexandersson with Lizette Rönnqvist & Nils Nygård from Chicago Swing Dance Studio. Original puppet "Ballet dancer by Gunnar Rönnlund and "Tradidional puppet" by Unknown.

Our goal was to find interesting ways to present the research at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts (Scenkonstmuseet) and to create tailor-made digital bodies for the motion data.

Three archived theater puppets from the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts and five from various stop motion productions and private collections was 3D scanned with photogrammetry technique. 

For the 3D model cleanup I used Zbrush and for the rigging Maya and Unity for adding the motion capture dance, the synced music and rendering.

3D scanning (photogrammetry), Zbrush cleanup, rigging and rendering by Esther Ericsson. Mefistofeles puppetmaker: Harro Siegel, Germany, 1939-1959s, Swedish Museum of Performing Arts.

Studio setup for photogrammetry

Character: Ballet dancer. Puppet maker: Gunnar Rönnlund

Character from the puppet animated Opera "Love & War" by Fredrik Emilsson. Puppet and costume design, dressmaker & painter: Kristina Abelli Elander. Puppet constructor: Lisa Björkström, Dressmaker: Martin Starek

Making-Of.: Character "Bruden", puppetmaker; Lisa 

Björkström

Dance style examples

Motion Capture Dance, Choreography and Music:

Five projectors, nine Sleeping Beauties, seven minutes looped animations in "Dansboxen" at Scenkonstmuseet in Stockhom (Swedish Museum of Performing Arts) Dec 2021.

Homepage: https://www.sjusovarnasdans.com/

The project, Dance of the Sleeping Beauty, is part of the research project DigitalBodies and  NAVET Week 2021, 

This work has been funded by the NAVET center at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
NAVET - A hub to navigate unexplored regions between art, technology and design, kth.se/navet.