Choreohaptic Experiments

The ‘Haptic Experiments’ project explored how blind dance audience members can use their hands to experience the dynamic qualities of live dance performances through their sense of touch. A prototype under the name Choreo-haptic was completed as part of the first phase of the project, which was funded by a Digital Transformations Research Development fund. Blind users place their palms and fingers on a pad and receive vibrations which aim to make them feel aspects of the movement, such as softness or circular patterns, while dancers perform live. The popular technology of Microsoft Kinect was used to track the dancers’ movement together with small size vibrating motors embedded in a pad that respond real-time to the data received from the Kinect. While still in its infancy, the Choreo-haptic has generated very enthusiastic responses amongst blind participants who tested it. Once fully developed, the new device could offer blind people a much better access to the experience of viewing dance, than the traditional method of audio description, which has been used up to this point to support blind audience members of dance and theatre performances. This approach could be developed further to enhance the attendance of other movement-based activities (such as sports) for both blind and sighted people. The interdisciplinary research team of this project included dance and education researchers in collaboration with information technology specialists, all of whom are based at the University of Edinburgh.