Embers

Embers is a digital hybrid performance created with my LED Dragon Staff, VR tracking technology, an interactive virtual world and visual effects made with Unity3D, and a suite of live production software & hardware. It follows the story of how my dragon staff practice developed over time, from stumbling into it to becoming an extension of my body, and from a personal hobby to a performing art. Creating Embers was my way to explore novel modes of digital interaction, while deepening my dragon staff practice and mind-body connection through physical self expression. It is my hope in future this project can become a toolkit or springboard for augmenting the performances of flow artists everywhere. The flow toy I will be hybridizing is a dragon staff: a staff with LED or wick spokes on the ends that is rolled or spun on the body in a kind of dance. The hybrid aspect of the toy and performance is created through attaching positional + rotational sensors and buttons to the staff, allowing its movements to be tracked in 3D space as well as additional layers of interaction, and by doing so I can now interact with and control a dynamic virtual world at the same as my physical stage performance.