Dance Trail
Giles Jobin
Dance Trail is an augmented reality dance piece in the form of an iOS app that enables users to bring virtual dancers into the real world through their smartphone or tablet.
The app enables users to trigger unreal dance sequences in the environment they are in (indoor or outdoor). Users can also place dances anywhere in the world and share screenshots and videos via social networks. Available for free download on the App Store, at festivals and cultural events, various dances can thus appear in specific places (location-based) in relation to their environment. Created for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, the Dance Trail app invited people from all over the world (Park City, Brussels, Hong Kong, Japan, Dublin, Korea) to take a journey in augmented dance, in the streets, in the fields or in the palm of their hand. Dance Trail is an augmented reality app for smartphones and tablets that enables viewers to trigger unreal dance sequences on multiple sites.
Credits
Director and choreographer Gilles Jobin
Creative director and technologist Camilo de Martino
Lead 3D Artist Tristan Siodlak
Lead dance artist Susana Panès Diaz
Dancers Susana Panadés Diaz, Victoria Chiu, Maëlle Déral, Diya Naidu, Tidiani N’diaye, Gilles Jobin
AR Technology A-LL Creative Technology
Administration Gonzague Bochud
Production Cie Gilles Jobin – Geneva, Switzerland
Co-production SRG SSR – Switzerland
Supported by Cinéforom – Loterie Romande – City of Geneva
Giles Jobin
Gilles Jobin is a choreographer living and working in Geneva whose productions have been performed all over the world since 1995. Based in London from 1997 to 2004 he created the groundbreaking pieces A+B=X (1997), Braindance (1999), The Moebius Strip (2001) and Under Construction (2002), relying on choreographic language outside of established aesthetic frameworks that included forays into visual arts and live art. In 2003 he created TWO-THOUSAND-AND-THREE for the 22 dancers of the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève for a performance that “transcends both classical and contemporary dance” (Libération).
In 2015, he received the Swiss Grand Award for Dance from the Office Fédéral de la Culture in honor of his career to date. Nowadays Gilles Jobin combines contemporary dance with his passion for new imaging technologies, resulting in the production of the film WOMB in stereoscopy (3D) in 2016, FORÇA FORTE in 2017, a duo using motion capture images and in 2017 VR_I, a location-based piece in immersive virtual reality.
His creations are being presented in major film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival (2018 and 2020) and the Venice Film Biennial (2018 and 2020), leading dance festivals such as the Lyon Dance Biennial (2018) or BAM (2019) in New York or museums such as Haus For Electronishe Kunst / HEK in Basel. With the same creative team and dancers behind Magic Window (2019) and Dance Trail (2020), two augmented reality dance pieces, followed by La Comédie Virtuelle a multiuser VR piece and La Comédie Virtuelle – live show a real time multiuser performance in VR. In 2021 he created Cosmogony a dance piece motion captured live in the company’s studios and streamed in real time globally.
With the COVID pandemic the Cie Gilles Jobin is focusing on technology and innovation for real time performances at a distance. Creating multiple groundbreaking projects Gilles Jobin is recognized as one of a leading creative force in the XR world. Gilles is regularly invited as an international guest lecturer on dance and technology in Europe, Asia and Americas. Geneva’s company studio is equipped for motion capture and digital creation and structured as an affordable research and production center for motion capture and digital technology from the point of view of the performing arts.
