The Tutorial Guide to DanceForms

A new approach to choreography and dance

Digital Interactive Resource Guide

Foreword by Merce Cunningham

Distributed by Credo Interactive Inc.

The choreographer Merce Cunningham was the original inspiration behind the production of Credo’s DanceForms, a software program for choreographers. After years of research, Janet Randell, international choreographer and dance animator, has written, animated and produced The Tutorial Guide To DanceForms. The Guide has been created to enable users to unlock the digital way to work with dance and choreography.

One of the aims of The Guide is to make this new and complex subject of 3D animation more accessible to the dance world and to encourage a whole new way of approaching dance and choreography. Another aim is to explore the innovative possibilities involved in creating live and animated versions of a dance sequence set to music. The Guide has been created for choreographers, dance teachers, students and dancers of all ages and physical abilities.

Via interactive tutorial modules, challenges, demonstrations, voice-overs and movies, Randell’s approach in each tutorial is to take the individual on a fascinating journey to discover choreography and animation, talking to the user as if he or she were working and progressing on a one to one basis with her. Her objective is for users to learn more about the art of dance and choreography by mastering DanceForms.

Background

In 1999, Randell was directly inspired and challenged by dancers from The Merce Cunningham Dance Company to find an alternative way of choreographing and working with dance by using DanceForms. For many years, Merce was the creative mentor for the DanceForms development team led by Tom Calvert, President of Credo Interactive Inc., also Professor Emeritus and Graduate Program Chair in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraiser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Randell discovered that DanceForms is an innovative and artistic software program for choreographers. She decided to find a practical method of presenting DanceForms from the point of view of a dancer and choreographer, to make the program more easily accessible to the dance and education world. With her passion for making the art of dance and choreography available to everyone, she writes:

“DanceForms is a wonderful new choreographic tool for any dancer, choreographer or anyone interested in dance. DanceForms appeals to all ages  and also to those who are physically challenged through disability.”