Designing a Remote-Controlled Interactive Dance Costume

This paper presents the concept design of an interactive costume for contemporary dance projects. The costume can be configured and cued remotely through a graphical user interface providing the ability to connect to any other stage technologies via OSC or to work in standalone mode. The concept further contributes to integrate IMUs as motion sensors and vibration motors as motion actuators for exploring interactivity of dance movements. Its fashion design is characterized by the aesthetics of illuminated fiber optic cables distributed over the whole performing body but almost invisible when turned off. The presented concept design is part of a larger research project and a performance with such a costume prototype is currently realized and tested for stage environments, in close collaboration with dancer/choreographer, visual artists, and sound composer.