- What role does movement play in your own life or communities that you are part of?
Movements play an important role mostly all the time in people’s lives. The Eastern culture that I grow up with promotes a relatively restrained way of behaving. Thus, to me, movements are more of a way to express feelings and emotions.
- What movement, practice, tradition, ritual, or performance resonates with you and why? What are the historical and cultural contexts of your chosen movement?
I’m passionate about musical theater and love watching the performers dance on stage, especially the synchronized movements and the sense of order they create.
Additionally, I’m captivated by Chinese traditions, particularly Taoism. I find the hand poses in Taoism fascinating, as they each carry unique meanings and are said to have the power to assist those facing challenges. Whether or not this is entirely true, I think it’s a compelling and visually striking aspect of the tradition.
- Which ethnographic methods are relevant to your research and why?
I would first rely on document analysis, since I am in NYC not in China, and video documentation would be the most effective record I could rely on.
Then I may interview people online who is interested in Taoism, and gain more information about how important the hand poses are in Taoism culture.
- How might this practice be expressed through motion capture?
I might be thinking of capturing especially hand pose movement, and show the different movement between different handposes.
- What permissions and resources do you need to respectfully engage with your subject?
Permissions: I may need to engage with Taoist people to gain insight of this project, as a small mistake in the hand pose may be offensive to them.
Resources: Book and videos about Taoism hand poses.
- Is your project feasible within the constraints of this class?
I am not sure since this project is going to mainly focus on the fingers movement, and fingers are more precise and requires more data and post processing after purely motion capturing the movements. So I may need to discuss this with professor.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yb421H75N/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=b414209c23c5581bf211461f2fc466cc