Dolphin Dance Project - 3D Video

Text by Lila Moore, PhD

In the article Water e-Motion: Transformative Views, I discuss my research of the Dolphin Dance Project 3D video. On the basis of few experiments and an expert advice, I have found that the 3D video triggers kinesthetic empathy especially in young viewers.  The empathetic feelings towards the dolphins on screen are often expressed by the viewing children through spontaneous imitation of the dolphins' movements. The article will be available in the forthcoming e-book of Waterwheel Symposium's Proceedings, 3WDS14.

My current independent research continues to investigate the ways  kinesthetic empathy is induced and expressed, especially by young viewers watching and interacting with the 3D video by the Dolphin Dance Project. I experiment in the framework of small film-viewing events/workshops which include the children's interaction with the video. I am sharing and discussing my findings with a holistic movement and dance expert, Rose V. Ketter, who holds MA in dance studies from Surrey University, and has worked with thousands of children utlising video images of dance.

This research is based on, and an extension of, my previous work and PhD thesis entitled Dance on Screen. In the thesis' abstract I wrote that

I approach choreography in screen terms thereby referring to the expression of movement in the broader sense, including performance, body language, the motion of objects and natural events, and rhythms and movements created via film/video technology.

I emphasise the hybrid nature of dance on screen, thus allowing the integration of various forms and sources of movement which are not necessarily human or relating to dance in a traditional sense.

In Dance on Screen, I demonstrate the theme of the Mythical Journey as correlating with the aesthetics of dance and choreography for the screen. The Dolphin Dance Project brings to mind the mythic relationship between humans and dolphins. 'Delphi' is the Greek word for dolphin, and its derivative 'delphys' means womb. Delphi was also the name of the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world.  In mythological depictions, the dolphins are sometimes portrayed accompanying the sun god Apollo, the god of Delphi, and Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of beauty and love who was born of the foam of the sea.

In our day and age, dancing with the dolphins takes on new forms and meanings as illustrated by the Dolphin Dance Project. Human dancers replace the mythic gods. The humans don't dictate the dance to the dolphins or coach them to perform, but co-create the dance with them as equal partners. The dolphins join the dancers spontaneously and leave when they wish.

It is challenging to overcome the human tendency to exhibit superiority over animals and force them to fulfill human expectations. Most of the images of animals that we watch on screen and online on a daily basis are manipulated for human purposes and needs. It is difficult to 'capture' (film) dolphins (or any other animal) and show them as images on screen without projecting conventional and limiting perceptions of their characteristics and environment. As viewers we are likely to project our own ideas and emotions on the filmed sea creatures, unless we are guided by the film-makers to see them differently through alternative depictions.

"The Dolphin Dance Project believes that one of the most powerful ways to transform how our global civilization relates to its natural environment and treats the other creatures with whom we share the planet is to challenge the common assumption that we are separate from the rest of nature" (Blog).

The  Dolphin Dance Project challenges the worldview that humanity is above, and superior to, the rest of nature, and has inherited a privileged status on Earth. In the Project's videos, we can observe the dancers following and relating to the movements of the dolphins and creating the possibility of interaction on both species' terms. The films function as transformative experience based on "the mutual understanding and creative collaboration" of humans and wild dolphins.