Dance training system with active vibro-devices and a mobile image display

This paper deals with a basic dance training system with multimodal information presentation. The system targets on beginners and enables them to learn basics of dances easily. Watching a video showing the performance of dance masters is one of the most effective ways of learning dances. However, it is difficult for dance beginners to obtain useful information well only by watching video. They can hardly know timing information and the amount of translation. Although we can tell how to move our arms or legs from video, it is difficult to know when to start moving them. In addition, they cannot obtain translational motion, especially that in the depth direction (how far the dancers move forward or backward). We solve the first issue by developing active devices. The active devices consist of some vibro-motors and are designed to direct action-starting cues with vibration. Concerning the second issue, the image display on a mobile robot is introduced into the system. We can learn the amount of translation just by following the robot. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed method.