Pop-up Mocap Lab with Cie Gilles Jobin

A creative mocap workshop powered by Qualisys

Session 1: March 23-25, 2025
Session 2: March 26-28, 2025

Session 1 and Session 2 will have identical curricula. Please only register for one workshop session.

Each session is three days and can accommodate six dancers and six technologists (anyone interested in working with dance and mocap —choreographers, film directors, animators, 3D modelers, etc.)

If you are a student of UC Berkeley applying to be considered for the lab, please select the UC Berkeley Student option and which role/session you would like to participate in. Check-out using the code UCBERKELEY100 and in your email you will then be prompted with further instructions.

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The San Francisco Dance Film Festival and UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies presents the Pop-up Mocap Lab, a 3-day motion capture workshop led by Cie Gilles Jobin, a Swiss dance company working at the forefront of dance and motion capture.

Equipped with a high-end optical motion capture system, this workshop is designed for dancers, choreographers, technical artists, 3D artists and digital creators interested in real-time motion capture and digital performance, which opens up new ways to express movement, tell stories, and collaborate across disciplines. It bridges the physical and digital worlds, letting you create performances that go beyond the limits of live or filmed dance. Bringing together performers and technical artists, the workshop allows dancers to explore motion capture performance while technical artists gain a deeper understanding of the mocap pipeline for digital productions. By working together, both groups develop a shared understanding of movement in virtual environments and the technical workflows behind digital performance.

Led by experts in mocap, contemporary dance, choreography, and interactive media design, participants will experience dancing inside a digital environment, exploring how movement interacts with real-time motion capture technology. This is an opportunity to develop new skills for performing in virtual spaces, with applications across industries such as film and television, video games, live and interactive performances, and advertising.

Image description: In the foreground, people sit in front of computer monitors running a motion-capture program. In the background, dancers wearing black move atop a white grid with projections around them.

Program Details

Bootcamp – Training Beyond the Basics
Bootcamp is a digital training project designed in Unity to train performers in real-time motion capture techniques. It serves as a space for dancers to perform in digital environments, focusing on:

- Embodying digital avatars
- Exploring movement at different scales
- Interacting with other avatars
- Navigating 3D spaces
- Switching scenarios live
- Using choreographic creative tools – Working with live duplications and virtual cameras

Repertory Dance Piece by Cie Gilles Jobin
The workshop uses Cosmogony, a digital work presented at Sundance in 2019, as a case study. Participants will explore how to navigate virtual spaces, with a particular focus on the dynamic framing of the virtual camera.

Creative Mocap: Hands-On Experimentation
Participants will have the opportunity to create their own choreography or scene within the Bootcamp project. This open creative space allows performers and technical artists to experiment together with a variety of avatars and customizable environments, and real-time motion capture workflows.

Your Personal Motion Capture File
Each performer will record a one-minute motion capture take, focusing on their personal movement style. A 1-minute FBX file with their motion capture data will be provided—ready for use in your future projects.

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The Team

Led by Cie Gilles Jobin with the support of Qualisys

Gilles Jobin – Artistic Director, Choreographer and Filmmaker
Susana Panades Diaz – Lead Dance artist and Movement Coordinator
Adryan Barrilliet – Lead Technologist and Unity Developer

About Cie Gilles Jobin

Since the 1990s, Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin has been recognized for his groundbreaking approach to contemporary dance, with his works presented at major international festivals, including Montpellier Danse Festival, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, and BAM New York. With over thirty choreographic works created between 1995 and 2024, he has established a strong international presence, touring worldwide. In recognition of his contributions to dance, Gilles Jobin was awarded the Swiss Grand Prix for Dance in 2015.

In 2016, he expanded into digital creation, pioneering the integration of dance and new technologies. With works like the stereoscopic film WOMB and the immersive VR piece VR_I, Cie Gilles Jobin quickly gained recognition in the digital arts. Its groundbreaking work has been featured at top XR festivals, including the Venice Biennale (2018, 2020) and Sundance Film Festival (2019, 2020, 2022), earning multiple international awards for technological and artistic innovation.

With a commitment to redefining dance through technology, Cie Gilles Jobin is one of the few dance companies in the world pushing the boundaries of movement in real-time motion capture and immersive digital performance. The company continues to pioneer new ways of integrating dance, motion capture, and virtual environments, expanding the possibilities of digital dance and shaping the future of performance in virtual spaces.