Quantification of force generation during turns: implications for real-time sonified biofeedback

Real-time sonified biofeedback has the potential to facilitate skill acquisition related to balance and successful turns. Turning is an essential skill for dancers and pedestrians. However, in order to turn, people must achieve conflicting mechanical objectives. Specifically, people need to concurrently manage generation of angular and linear momentum while maintaining balance above a changing base of support. This is a non-trivial task for novice dancers, bipedal robots, and balance-impaired clinical populations. We will present (1) a comparison of ground reaction force and muscle activation patterns used by two elite dancers while initiating turns and (2) examples of how this biomechanical information can be used to develop generalized and personalized biofeedback for balance and turn training. One goal of this presentation is to introduce our biomechanics community to interactive media sonification used in dance.