Research On Digital Technology Of Folk Dance As Intangible Cultural Heritage

Among traditional dances, folk dance is the one that bears the closest relationship with folklore. It includes traditional dancing activities as well as related folk cultural spaces. With the high-speed development of economic society and the getting old of the inheritors, a lot of precious folk dances are struggling to survive under the impact of modern civilization. Great achievements have been made through recording folk dance veritably, systematically and roundly using digital technology. However, lots of bottleneck exist in traditional digital protection technology, such as lack of relative theory, which causes insufficient use of modern information approaches; the disunity of digital technology standards, irregular resource construction; the underdeveloped traditional video and image digital technology, and poor editability and usability of data; great importance that has been attached to the digitization of dancing activities alongside the ignorance of the knowledge relation between folk dance and culture space and incomprehensive digital protection which finally resulted in the fragmentary protection of folk dance.Focused on the questions mentioned above, we synthesized cross-disciplinary theories and methods including Information Theory, Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality, knowledge Representation, Folklore, Intangible Cultural Heritage(ICH) and so on to explore the key techniques. Information Space Theory and Knowledge Representation Theory were applied to the digital protection of folk dance, and this research was expanded in three parts:specification of folk dance digital technology, rapid spanning of three-dimensional digitization of dancing activities and the construction of ontology of cultural space. Finally, the Saye’erhe dance of Tujia was used as an example, utilizing research achievements and incorporating new technology such as three dimension scanning, motion capture, visual construction etc., and realized the comprehensive protection of national culture resource.The current research is of great value in facilitating the application of digital technique in ICH especially folk dance, promoting a further integration of culture and technology, and realizing the comprehensive protection and inheritance as well as innovation. The research mainly consists of five parts, as follows:(1) The theoretical research on the digital protection of folk danceA three-level classification of folk dance and a technology system of ICH digitization were presented, and the research scope of folk dance was defined based on its attributes of folk and dance, which is a countermeasure to the poor theory basis of ICH digitization. Then we explored the methods of folk dance protection and spread in combination with the theory of Information Space and knowledge representation, which included the research of technical manual of digitization through the dimension of coding, and research of digital activities and the construction of cultural space ontologies through the dimensions of abstract and diffusion. This part of work set the basis for the research in following chapters.(2) The research on technical manual of folk dance digitizationAs a countermeasure to the irregular ICH resource construction standards and metadata annotations, the digital acquisition technology and metadata standard were explored for three-dimension models, actions, voices and videos drawing on the experience of current digital acquisition technology and Dublin Core metadata. Then the digital technology standard is proposed and practiced through application to offer a guide for digital construction of folk dance activities and cultural spaces.(3) On the digital technology of folk danceOn the issues of the low level and inefficient digital technology of folk dance, we came up with a rapid spanning and motion synthesis method for inheritor’s realistic body based on one front photo. The method includes construction of standard face model base, interactive calibration of13facial feature-points, face model matching based on face features, facial texture mapping based on triangle deformation and bilinearity interpolation method, complexion fuse based on Alpha map and body adjustments based on vector difference etc., which can interactively adjust inheritors body and finally to generate realistic body model of inheritor rapidly. Finally, the realistic recovery of folk dance is realized in a digital circumstance.(4) Knowledge ontology construction of cultural spaces of folk danceIn this part, we conducted the research using ontology model to describe and express the complex knowledge relation in cultural spaces in the existed issue of fragment protection method for folk dance. The research includes the following in detail:according to the knowledge characters of cultural spaces of folk dance, the mutual recognition of basic concepts and hierarchical relation in this field were confirmed in seven terms of type, nation, time, place and evolution. The knowledge elements and relationship in the field of cultural space, and the mutual relationship were expressed through formal model of different levels, through which knowledge organization framework was constructed to accelerate knowledge sharing and reuse.(5) Digital practice of Saye’erhe dance of TujiaTo verify the availability of the technology and method proposed in the current paper, one of the first batch of state-level ICH items--Saye’erhe dance was selected as an example. The digital protection practice of Saye’erhe was conducted based on the theory of information space and knowledge representation, which includes normative digital collection and interactive rapid generating of inheritor-models, dancing movements, traditional libretto and aria music. Finally, an all-dimentional integration exhibition was conducted based on the digital technology achievements, which realized a rapid digital and integral conservation for Saye’erhe dance and cultural space, and promoted the level of digital preservation technology for folk dance.