Enterprise AI Analysis

Related Work: Contextualizing Digital Cloth in Performance

This section briefly presents some works related to cloth simulation and digital practices, specifically examining applications targeted on choreography and costume design, and visual representations that guide choreography or invoke movement experimentation in digital environments.

Cloth simulation in choreography and costume design

Insights from both choreographers and costume designers while using 3D Cloth modelling software (CLO 3D) for costume development are described in the work by Porterfield and Oliver [7], where they highlight software's role as a collaborative tool. They emphasize how digital cloth simulations enhance design communication, allowing dancers to provide feedback on garment designs. The research indicates that these simulations influence creative processes by clarifying silhouette and surface design intentions, ultimately shaping costume design and choreographic decisions. It is very interesting to note that choreographers were more enthusiastic using cloth simulation as a tool compared to costume designers who were initially skeptical. This integration of technology fosters a deeper understanding of movement and material in performance contexts.

Innovative costume fitting and choreography through cloth simulation is also studied by Ilic et al. [5]. In their work they explore the integration of digital cloth simulation in theatrical costume design and highlight how tools like Marvelous Designer and motion-tracking enhance the creative process, allowing for innovative costume fitting and choreography. This approach not only informs design decisions, but also shapes aesthetic outcomes in performance, suggesting that digital cloth environments can significantly influence perceptions of movement and material in live performances.

Visualizations and body augmentation

Ting et al. [14] examine how audiences perceive the same choreography—The Triadic Ballet—across live, screen-based, and virtual formats. Their study highlights how costume, movement, and spatial dynamics shift depending on the medium, offering valuable parallels to this research. While their focus is on audience perception, the work underscores how digital environments transform the relationship between body, costume, and space. This work is much related with the idea central to this PhD: that virtual garments can act not only as visualizations but also as tools for choreographic exploration and conceptual movement development.

A similar direction is described in [11], where the object is an extensive analysis of how mental imagery and movement metaphors—commonly used in dance and somatic practices—can be translated into interactive digital environments. This work supports the idea that visualizing imagined bodily states (e.g., weight, rigidity, fluidity) can enhance creative movement generation. By categorizing types of metaphors and demonstrating how digital tools like avatars and augmented visuals impact dancers' perception this paper aligns with this project's exploration of digital cloth as a non-physical, visual cue for movement ideation.

Similarly, Raheb et al., [9] introduces The Choreomorphy system that exemplifies how digital avatars and visual metaphors can drive dance improvisation and support creative learning. Their research demonstrates how viewing oneself as a transformed avatar—for example bulky or abstract—triggers different movement qualities and emotional responses.

Research Problem & Questions: Bridging Digital Innovation and Performance Art

Designing and prototyping physical costumes is often a costly, time-intensive endeavor, limiting experimentation and constraining the creative freedom of designers and choreographers alike. These constraints may delay the exploration of how garments behave in motion until late in the production process, potentially compromising the integration between costume and choreography. Moreover, costume designers often have limited opportunities to observe performers' movements. Creating a costume suited to specific motions typically requires multiple trials. Motion capture offers a powerful solution, enabling designers to repeatedly test how a design responds to movement without requiring dancers to perform each time.

Beyond the primary benefits of incorporating movement-responsive costumes early in the design process, the combination of digital cloth simulation and motion capture technology may also address challenges and open new creative avenues for choreographers. While choreography increasingly explores technologies like motion capture and extended reality (XR) [8, 15], digital cloth animation remains relatively underexplored. Yet, there is no doubt that costume and choreography are deeply interconnected—two sides of the same coin in the physical performance space [2].

Therefore, digital cloth simulation, combined with motion capture technology in which dancer movement can be captured and reproduced through digital characters, provides three promising research directions:

• For physical production, it serves as a sustainable, iterative method to adopt early stage costumes and test and refine garments before fabrication, optimizing material choices, fit, and interaction with the moving body.
• For movement ideation, it offers an imaginative space where digital garments—sometimes impossible or impractical in real life—can act as metaphorical or aesthetic prompts for choreography. For instance, visualizing how a dancer moves while digitally seeing and draped in rigid metal, airy tulle, or exaggerated silhouettes can elicit entirely new movement vocabularies.
• For practicing and understanding movement qualities through cloth animation. Previous work [12] as well as literature studies [4] suggest that certain visualizations can inspire dancers to move with certain movement qualities.

Further exploration of this areas might involve the following Research Questions:

• How can cloth simulation inspire choreographic decisions?
• In what ways can animated cloth prototypes shape costume design processes?
• What creative insights emerge from iterative workflows between digital cloth environments and physical movement?
• What models of collaboration between choreographers and costume designers are enhanced by virtual costume environments?
• How can digital garments—never intended for physical construction—generate meaningful choreographic material?

Methodology: An Iterative and Interdisciplinary Approach

A preliminary stage of the research will involve tracing current collaboration models between choreographers and costume designers through interviews and case studies. Key questions include: How do choreographers and costume designers typically communicate during the production cycle? Do they adopt parallel workflows or co-creation practices? How do factors such as team size, budget, or institutional structure affect collaborative practices? This investigation will allow the project to develop a typology of collaboration models (e.g., sequential, parallel, co-creative) that can be used to structure future workshops and analyze outcomes.

Moreover, we shall proceed with studying theoretical frameworks that examine digital cloth and movement. Theories like New Materialism [10] which include concepts like Material Agency and Entanglement of Bodies and Textiles or Digital Dramaturgy [13] might offer a solid theoretical background to base our experiments. Furthermore, Skinner Releasing Technique [2], will be examined as a possible framework for developing experiments.

In this research experiments with qualitative and quantitative results will be carried out, testing developed prototypes and methodologies. Employed technologies will include cloth simulation, Game Engines, XR environments, digital character creation design and motion capture systems, whereas Artificial Intelligence tools could be also explored.

The target group/users of this project will consist of choreographers, costume designers and performers that will collaborate in both real-time and asynchronous formats, engaging in embodied experimentation with digital garments, using screen-based and immersive interfaces, in the form of workshops and iterative design sessions. Moreover, a dance studio based in Athens, which designs costumes and develops choreographies, will serve as a first use case scenario for hosting workshops and experimental sessions.

A feedback loop will be established between virtual simulations and physical trials, allowing for iterative development of both movement and garment design. The process will be thoroughly documented and research methods like interviews, focus groups, and observation will be obtained to reach qualitative and quantitative outcomes.

Current Progress: Foundations and Ongoing Research

This project has cloth simulation and embodiment as a core element. Below we present some implemented works that aim to tangle this subject through various directions.

Previously, we mentioned understanding movement through digital clothing. In one of our past works, we examined how digital costumes and avatars influence dance learning in Virtual Reality. We investigated how different visual representations—avatar type and costume—impact users' ability to mimic dance moves, focusing on step accuracy, rhythm, and overall movement quality. A user study with 19 participants explored 12 animated character visualizations, combining two dance routines (easy, hard), two avatar types (realistic female, abstract dummy), and two costumes (cloak, skirt-top), including clothing-only visualizations without avatars (Figure 1). Developed in Unity and experienced via Oculus Quest 2, the VR environment guided users through routines, followed by expert evaluations, questionnaires, and observation. Results showed that abstract avatars like the dummy doll improved clarity and rhythm replication, while flowing costumes often reduced accuracy, especially in harder routines. However, experienced dancers valued moving clothes for expressing movement qualities. Quantitative analysis confirmed significant performance differences based on avatar and costume type. Minimalist designs enhanced precision, while dynamic clothing supported expressive exploration. These insights inform future digital dance system design. We plan to integrate real-time motion capture and cloth simulation to further explore these interactions. The full paper of this process can be found here [12].

The integration of emerging technologies like XR and AI specifically for ethnic costumes is also explored in another survey study. Although this work has the safeguarding of ethnic costume as its main subject, special attention is paid to dance costumes and their embodiment and movement parameters. The work highlights key gaps in motion-aware, interactive costume simulation—particularly in dance contexts. It emphasizes the need to move from static digitization to embodied, performative representations of garments. This aligns with the argument that cloth is not just as a visual artifact, but a dynamic, responsive element in choreographic and design processes. Moreover, the paper identifies simulation, AI-based generation, and virtual try-on systems as emerging tools, reinforcing the potential of digital cloth workflows in both artistic and archival contexts.

In another ongoing work, we examine how costumes function as active scenographic agents that shape both physical and virtual performance spaces. Drawing on Marshall's concept of the scenographic costume [6], We explore the dual role of costume as both an element of spectacle and a means of restricting or expanding movement, particularly in digital and XR-enhanced environments. By analyzing examples from historical (e.g., Lamentation by Martha Graham¹) and hybrid techno-performances (e.g., Asphyxia²), the study will identify two key functions of costume: visual augmentation and the tension between movement freedom and restriction. We plan on expand on these ideas through case studies and conceptual frameworks such as the "lost in fabrics" paradigm—where fabric becomes a medium for altering kinosphere, narrative, and movement quality.

Conclusion: Redefining Costume as an Active Agent in Performance

This research positions digital cloth simulation not simply as a tool for visualization, but as a generative and collaborative medium at the intersection of choreography and costume design. By bridging motion capture, immersive technologies, and embodied experimentation, it aims to redefine how costumes are conceptualized, designed, and integrated into the creative process. The dual approach—supporting both production and ideation—offers fertile ground for rethinking traditional workflows and unlocking new creative potentials in performance-making.

Through interdisciplinary case studies, user-centered experimentation, and theoretical grounding in digital movement practices and material agency, the project will explore how garments can become active participants in shaping movement, space, and narrative. As digital costumes begin to influence not only how we move but how we imagine moving, this work aspires to shape new practices in both artistic creation and collaborative design processes.

Acknowledgments

This PhD is under the supervision of Assistant Professor Spyros Vosinakis, University of the Aegean.

References

The full list of references can be found in the original publication.