Current Status of Indian Classical Dance Virtual Prototype Project Faridah Noor Mohd Noor 1 *, Selvanathan Narainasamy 1, Suhaimi Napis 2, Harun Jantrik 2 and Azmir Saifudin Mutalib 3. 1 University of Malaya, 2 Universiti Putra Malaysia, 3 Multimedia Development Corporation, Malaysia. *Deputy Director, Centre for Civilizational Dialogue, University of Malaya

Outline Introduction Virtual Indian Dance Project The Prototype: Progress report Future Direction and Collaboration

Introduction Malaysia Multi-cultural and multi-religious country Melting pot of various ethnic groups comprised of Malays, Chinese, Indians and indigenous people. Rich cultural heritage Cross-culture due to assimilation- New Culture eg. Baba/Nyonya, Portugese Descendents Colourful history and bright future

Introduction Culture involves at least three components: What people think, What they do, and What material products they produce Source: John H. Bodley, Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System, 1994.

Introduction What is exactly the definition of Digital Culture or E-Culture? A Marriage between Culture and Technology Using computers to manage cultural information

Introduction What is the Purpose and Objective of Digital Culture / E-Culture? To immortalise and preserve culture for the future generation With digital repository, archival work of these priceless historical gems can be immortalised for generations to come Creation of Cyber Heritage

Virtual Indian Dance Project Reports on the progress that has been made since the last APAN Meeting held in Taipei, August 2005.

How the Project was Initiated Traditional dances are part of each ethnic cultural heritage The present generation owes it to the future generation to keep a record with a purpose to preserve and hand down to them how these dances can be performed

Virtual Indian Dance Project A collaborative research project to capture the motions of a Traditional Indian Dance 1. University of Malaya, 2. Universiti Putra Malaysia, 3. Multimedia Development Corporation, Malaysia. Mr. Ganesan, Malaysia

Bharatnatyam One of the type of classical Indian dance Originated from the southern part of India: Tamilnadu Subtle and sophisticated dance Provides spiritual satisfaction to performer and aesthestic experience to the audience (Saroja V., 1996:2)

Bharatnatyam An acronymn consisting of: Bhava Expression Raga Melody Tala Rhythm Natyam Dance

Choice of Dance Type for Project Movements, gestures (hands, facial expressions, eye and eyebrows movements, etc are highly symbolic and means something Classical and very rich in history Well-documented

The Prototype Marks the beginning of a continuous chain of collaborative research between the Arts and IT disciplines, in Malaysia at least

The Prototype: Progress report Made some progress with the prototype Original data from Motion Capture was reused to make new animated character Converted into Virtual Reality Data for visualization using CAVE with stereoscopic googles Eventually, we want to integrate real 3D scanned image of the dancer himself with full costumes Video clips and images

The Prototype: Progress report Capturing the Motion Capture Datasets

The Prototype: Progress report Captured Datasets used to animate a skeleton

The Prototype: Progress report Captured Datasets re-used to animate a character

The Prototype: Progress report Captured Datasets re-used to animate a character with moving background

The Prototype: Progress report The prototype has been converted to 3D virtual reality datasets for viewing on CAVE at Virtual Reality Centre of Multimedia Development Corporation Some images at the VR Centre, MDC during the test-run

The Prototype: Progress report Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report Control Console

The Prototype: Progress report Showing the video clip

The Prototype: Progress report Showing the video clip

The Prototype: Progress report Showing the video clip to audience wearing googles

The Prototype: Progress report Showing the video clip to audience

Future Direction and Collaborations Other projects in the pipeline: Mah Meri Masks Jahut carvings/statues Museum of Asian Arts, University of Malaya

BES BIDAN UM84.3 (MIDWIFE)

BES BIDAN UM84.3 (MIDWIFE)

BES BAJANG UM84.7

Masks of Mah Meri

Mah Meri Masks in 3D

Concluding Remarks Collaboration between the Culture partners and ICT partners An understanding of what each partner is able to do

THANK YOU TERIMA KASIH