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Unsquare Dance results of infra-red light registration by a video camera, which captures the movement of the “balls”(markers, painted with a light reflector material), positioned at some joints of a performer's body. This caption is transmitted to a computer that runs the software X-Motion, showing the result in a screen, in real-time.

How did this work appear: motion language broads any spatial change of the body, from delicate gestures to expansive, exalted ones, which cause strong impression. These spatial changes, apparently invisible, are captured through the eyes as ways to its capacity of visual persistence. This interpretation isn't new, since it comes from Ancient Times: the Greek defined dance as drawing in the space.

The exhibition of a movement trajectory is secular: male private dances, made with fire torchs, describe circles in the air, like, for example, the Polinese dance called Sivanofaoti2. The study os the movement by its trajectory is more recent: it starts with photographic registers of light, moving in the dark. With the advent of computers, this register improved, as it could be submitted to diverse analysis of time and space. There are some studies in this area, ans in our specific case, we cite Nota-Anna.

Unsquare Dance was born from observations of Analivia Cordeiro, which came from her practical-theorical studies of human motion seen through electronic media, which points to the need of giving texture to the line that describes the motion path in the computer. This texture could give visuality to the musculature/weight relation.

Exposing her point of view to Luiz Velho, in an innovative proposal, inspired him to create the project Expressive Trajectories and X-Motion, software which gives infinite textures to lines, to be imaginated and defined by the user, transmitting expression.

A characteristic of the software X-Motion is to create different visualizations for the movement varying parameters such as: color, line types, stroke weight, and other effects that can be manipulated in real-time.

While the performer executes the movement, the VJ in the computer interpret the motion giving it an artistic expression. Thus, the same performance can generate many visual results depeneding of the VJs that operate the program and create singular visualizations with it. Therefore, X-Motion is foremost an aestetic instrument. Unsquare dance was born from these principles.

The lines and shapes that Unsquare dance produces are not abstract, they result from the body motion in real-time. They stimulate thinking about motion, an act possible by the "sixth sense" of human beings, the cinestesic, the one that tells us where each joint is located in our body and in space in each instant in time.

I ask myself: would the spectator that watches a performance of Unsquare Dance be able to see the lines which describe the movement without the visual help of the computer? I believe that not yet. Our eyes are not trained to look in this way to someone that is moving. We pay attention in a person, his/her expression, clothes and colors. But, who is conscious of the paths that each part of a moving body describe in space? Very few. Currently, these trajectories say little to the layman, however in the future they will tell a lot. This is the way to motion education in the future.

The motion capture of human joints and its trajectories in space induces a new kind of performance (be it in contemporary dance, sports, fights etc..). A novel way to learn, practice and create movements. This leads to a new look about performance, showing its essence, beacuse it reveals pure motion, independently of physical aspects of the person moving, and at the same time, characterizes very clearly the way each person moves.

This record of motion introduces with property, the performance in the digital world, but respecting the organicity of our body. I believe that the virtues and acrobatics, in the future, will be able to describe perfectly the plasticity of circles, straight lines and elaborate shapes. For this the body joints should be free and perfectly coordinates within the unity of the body. Which is a big challenge!

In general, the motion education is undergoing deep changes since the beginning of the XX century, seeking, particularly in the contemporary dance, to overcome the rigidity of the classical ballet. A lot has been done. Many technique appeared with the purpose to reconquer the organicity of the natural motion of human beings. But, it does not exist yet an effective instrument for motion evaluation that has surpassed the rules of ballet.

An instrument that describes the execution of any movement of the body in space and time, can point to flaws and locate them with precision in the specific body joint. This can lead to a new vision of movement.

The choreography Unsquare Dance is composed by natural movements, which are based on the passive release that uses the impulse of the spring generated by the musculature / force relation of gravity, maintaining the consciousness of the joints "open". I didn't look for references in ballet movements, modern dance or contemporary dance. My goal was to show the anthropormorphic of the generated trajectories, that can be easily observed on the rhythm , on the line's drawing and on the "organic" geometry generated by the movement of the "balls" placed on the joints of the body.

The expression of the movement is exactly located on the relationship between the mathematical form of a line and its execution by the body: how round is a circle? In which instant of its practice does it curve? There is the expression of movement. Individual expression: if another dancer performs the same dance, the trajectory is going to be similar, but not equal. The difference is the expression.

In the same manner if two Vjs, using the X-Motion software, create visual effects for the same dance, the results would be diverse. Considering the dual of creators performer / Vj, the performance of the body impresses (i.e. stamps, marks) the final work. It is a new body-art, placed between the electronic environment - instead of ink over canvas as a tradicional form of body- art.

Why body-art? First because without a body it doesn't exist, it is its essence. Second of all what can be seen is a line made by the body; the impression of the body; and not the own body. Third of all, is the unit performer / Vj that generates the work. Directly. The result is function of body performance. Infinite works can be created: performer 1 + Vj1...performer1 + Vj n, or performer 1 + Vj 1... performer n + Vj1. Everything depends on how many performers and Vjs are acting.

One characteristic is significant: the parameters of X-Motion suggest an imaginative flexibility of the Vj (as well as of the performer), because they allow a creation of visual possibilities in a direct, simple way. It activates imagination and genuine creativity, " creativity from the start", it means, who uses this software defines which, when and how the visual elements will be used. It opens a true new universe.

Analivia Cordeiro