Kinematic Motor Synergy Analysis to Understand Lock Dance Choreographies

Lock dance, or locking, is one of the popular old-school street dance styles featuring sharp, sudden, and isolated body movements through intricate control and coordination of joints and muscles. This work aims to understand the complex lock dance motions based on kinematic motor synergy analysis. Lock dance motions performed by three experienced dancers were measured with a markerless human motion capture technique. The motor synergies were identified and summarized using principle component analysis (PCA). The motion complexity, joint contributions, and motor coordination of ten basic lock dance choreographies were analyzed based on the synergy patterns and their activations. The results enhance our understanding of complex dance motions and serve as a step toward future applications to, e.g. dance skill or injury risk assessments.