Dance Tonite is a web based VR experience in which the user travels through a series of rooms containing virtual dancers, moving to the beat of Tonite by LCD Soundsystem. Each dance performance was created by a fan of the band using a VR controller. When viewed from a web or mobile device, which is how I viewed the project, the user can watch the dances from a birdseye perspective or the perspective of individual dancers. The thing that I admire most about this project is its simplicity--since the movements of the dancers was captured with two controllers and a headset, they are portrayed in the app as a single cone with two stick arms. The project makes use of solid, bright colors to match the upbeat tone of the music. The movements of the dancers is very natural and imperfect, (which is expected since they are recorded movements of actual dancers) which I think really adds to the experience and gives it less of a robotic feeling, despite how clean the shapes and colors are.
The project was created by Jonathan Puckey and Moniker, in collaboration with the Data Arts team at Google. The site lists a ton of technologies that they used: WebVR, Gamepad, Three.js, Preact, and Firebase, to name a few. I really appreciate how the artists are exploring recent technologies to create a unique music video, and I think that this project shows off some great capabilities that we have for creating easily accessible virtual reality experiences in the web.
Dance Tonite by Jonathan Puckey, Moniker, and the Google Data ArtsTeam