Physically-based particle modeling for dance verbs

As quoting in the philosophy of free dance: «Understanding the directions for a Free Dance performer stems mainly from the qualities and energy of the movement rather from spatial criteria», we advocate that dance movement is not only to perform a desired motion but also to feel and to transmit “sensation (expression)” by body and energy. Dynamic models are particularly adequate for this objective. They generate the dance movements exhibiting energetic consistency as underlain by the philosophy of free dance. By designing its own dynamic model, the user has a highlevel motion control to modify the quality of such dynamically generated movement, for example: light, heavy, stressed, sudden, sustained, etc. These dynamic models are hence well suited to produce spontaneous motion that looks natural and plausible. In this paper, we present a set of dynamic models based on physicalparticle modeling. We started from a selection of typical verbs of dance representing relevant basic dance actions: “to sway”, “to squat down”, “to develop”, “to walk”, “to turn”, “to half turn step over step”. For each of them, we designed the simplest physicallybased particle model. By combining such basic models, we show that it is possible to design less elementary dance figures as “salsa” and “waltz”.