Professor Toenjes took the Master Dancer demo app as it stands now to the Digital Research in Humanities and the Arts 2023 conference at the University of Turin, Italy. The team worked very hard to get the app working in time for the conference in early September. The app was presented every day at the conference for two hours, and happy to say, it ran flawlessly the whole time!

Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present

Fig.1 – A person using a VR headset in the library at the University of Turin, Italy during the 2023 DRHA conference.

The title of the conference was “Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present.” The Master Dancer app fit perfectly into this theme, as Master Dancer focuses on the dancer Loie Fuller as its main character. The app is delivered to the headset via a cable from a PC, and the University of Turin generously provided a powerful laptop for me to use.

Below is a video of the current version of the app as seen through the headset. We are currently in discussion with Dan Cermak and his team of student developers at the ST/UDIO to work on another revision to the app based upon feedback received while watching people engage with this version. This will be detailed in another post…