Procedural generation of Cuban dance motion

Inverse kinematics greatly simplifies the animation of models: positioning the hand alone will position the entire arm. In some dance styles, the position of the feet, together with which foot the weight is on, determines much of the bending and rotation of the legs, hips, rib cage, shoulders and arms. Cuban motion is a highly stylized example of this, used in several dances such as Salsa, Rumba, and Cha-cha. The principles covering Cuban motion, when combined with normal rigging constraints, allow a wide variety of dances and dance moves to be synthesized rapidly with minimal input. Only the timing of the weight changes (usually fixed for each dance), and the placement of the feet (usually fixed for each dance move), need be specified. In this talk we outline the principles of Cuban motion, and demonstrate how natural looking dance moves can be procedurally generated. We have found that the code for dance moves can be simplified enough to resemble the instructions given in dance guidebooks.