Daejeon, July 27–31
The relationship between technology and art has long been a central concern in art history and aesthetics. Heidegger's (1977) insight that techne discloses reality not only instrumentally but also poetically—as in artworks—offers a philosophical point of departure for understanding artistic practice in the digital age. Since the 1990s, computer technologies have increasingly shaped theater and dance, giving rise to interactive installations and networked performances (Dixon/Smith 2007). More recently, motion capture, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence have begun to systematically reshape the creation, dissemination, and reception of performing arts, as evidenced by emerging concepts such as "digital dance" (Ferdman, Bertie / Stokic 2020) and "digital theatre" (Masura 2020; Ma/Yuping 2025).
Within this trajectory, the digital preservation and dissemination of dance have emerged as a significant yet complex cultural practice. As one of the representative forms of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) dance, The Reba dance is currently undergoing this digital turn. In conventional technological narratives, digital technologies are positioned as neutral, efficient archival tools deployed to salvage living traditions that rely on bodily imitation and oral transmission. However, this study contends that such processes have always depended upon a digital cultural intermediary system that remains obscured by techno-instrumentalist narratives (Hutchinson 2023).This system encompasses both material hardware—such as motion capture systems (e.g. Vicon), data acquisition devices (e.g. Azure Kinect), and virtual reality interaction equipment (e.g. AR glasses)—and symbolic software, including algorithms, digital platforms, and 3D engines (e.g. Unity). These heterogeneous elements collectively constitute a powerful actor-network, translating localized, embodied dance practices into digital assets that are calculable, computable, and integrable.
However, when the corporeal language of dance—rooted in specific cultural contexts and imbued with aura and collective memory—is progressively translated into visualizable, storable, and computable data, a fundamental inquiry inevitably emerges: Is this process of translation as transparent and complete as techno-instrumentalism claims? It necessarily entails a profound reconfiguration of knowledge politics, wherein the embodied knowledge of dance is filtered, standardized, and recontextualized through translation, thereby giving rise to a series of deep-seated issues concerning power relations and cultural ethics. Yet, existing scholarship has largely focused on the "preservation" efficacy or "innovative" forms of digital technologies, lacking a systematic and critical examination of the knowledge filtration, power contestations, and ethical dilemmas engendered by their mediating role. Grounded in long-term ethnographic observation of ICH dance digitization practices, this study aims to penetrate the surface narrative of "technological empowerment" and critically analyze the constitutive role played by digital intermediaries in the translation process of ICH dance, as well as the profound transformations this engenders. Specifically, this paper addresses the following three interrelated core research questions:
This study's definition of "ICH dance" derives from the paradigmatic shift initiated by UNESCO's 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage—namely, a transition from the preservation of static material remnants toward the recognition of dynamic, living practices. The Convention defines ICH as "the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage"(UNESCO 2003).The core of this definition lies in its affirmation of the vital interconnection between cultural expressions and the communities, practicing subjects, and living contexts from which they emerge and within which they remain embedded. Therefore, "ICH dance" is, in essence, a form of embodied cultural heritage. Its primary and fundamental characteristic is its "lived vitality" ——that is, its knowledge, techniques, and meanings are not congealed in texts or material objects but rather dwell and are transmitted through living bodily practice. It perpetuates through inter-generational oral instruction and corporeal imitation, with its core knowledge manifesting as a form of "embodied knowledge" that is deeply reliant on individual muscle memory, kinesthetic perception, and situated responsiveness (Merleau-Ponty 2013). This fundamentally distinguishes it from any art form that can exist independently of the human body.
This embodied vitality manifests across three interrelated dimensions that constitute ICH dance as a living cultural entity. First, cultural rootedness. ICH dance bears the collective memory and spiritual beliefs of its community; its movement vocabulary itself constitutes a form of "bodily narrative," deeply bound to specific rituals, histories, or social functions. Second, territorial embeddedness. The dance's corporeal vocabulary, kinetic style, and associated costumes and implements all represent a long-term adaptation to and expression of geographical environments and ways of life. Third, normative conventionality. ICH dance maintains its traditional core through a relatively stable set of conventions—such as movement sequences, spatial formations, and ritual procedures—ensuring that its evolution does not transgress recognizable stylistic boundaries.
Taking the Tibetan Reba dance—the object of this study—as an exemplar, its cultural rootedness is deeply embedded in the ritual traditions of Tibetan Bon: Bon (also referred to as "Bonpo" or "Yungdrung Bon") is the indigenous religion of the Tibetan people, widely practiced across the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding Tibetan-inhabited regions. It constitutes not only one of the foundational belief systems of Tibetan culture but also a significant cultural matrix for Tibetan medicine, Tibetan Buddhist rituals, and even Tibetan folk dances such as the Reba dance.]].The early Reba drum and yak tail, serving as ritual implements of Bon, rendered the dance itself a practical medium for exorcising evil and invoking blessings. Its territorial embeddedness is manifested in the formative influence of the plateau environment on the dance's style. Generations of Tibetan people have inhabited high-altitude expanses, cultivating a disposition characterized by openness and boldness. Consequently, the leaps, spins, and drumming movements of the Reba dance exhibit an aesthetic of unrestrained vigor and robust power. Regarding normative conventionality, the Reba dance possesses a complete performance ritual transmitted through generations, strictly adhering to a tripartite structure comprising the "Sakya" (opening), the "main drama" (core performance), and the "Zhaxijie（扎西结）" (auspicious conclusion).The sequence and function of each segment remain resistant to arbitrary alteration. Through its bodily practice, the Reba dance vividly exemplifies the organic unity of the three dimensions constituting ICH dance as a living cultural entity. Accordingly, this study conceptualizes ICH dance as a dynamic cultural system centered on embodied practice, integrating ethnic cultural narratives, territorial characteristics, and conventional traditions.
The Reba dance, as the specific object of this study, was inscribed in 2006 on China's inaugural National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This dance is widely practiced across China's five major Tibetan-inhabited regions—namely, Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu. Its origins can be traced to Dingqing County in Changdou City, Tibet, a locality renowned as the "Homeland of Reba Art." The Reba dance is a comprehensive performing art centered on the bell and drum dance(see Figure 1). Its performances typically encompass a complete narrative structure, specific mask systems, and stylized performance procedures, rendering it a quintessential vehicle of living culture on the snow-covered plateau. In terms of specific forms, the Reba dance is often named after the region in which it circulates or the lineage that transmits it (Wang et al. 2016), giving rise to distinct schools such as "Dingqing Reba dance（丁青热巴舞）" "Dingga Reba dance（丁嘎热巴舞）" and "Xue Reba dance（雪热巴舞）." The Reba dance adheres to rigorous conventional norms, typically transmitted as "living heritage" through family lineages or master-apprentice relationships, and is performed within collective folk activities (see Figure 2). This study takes the "Xue Reba dance," as practiced in Zangdan XiecunVillage, Naqu, as its object of digital analysis, with movement data sourced from the systematic recording of the inheritor Suolang Yaci（索朗亚次） within the "Dance Lab" database.
The concept of "digital intermediaries" extends Bourdieu's notion of "intermediaries" from cultural production into the digital age. In traditional analytical frameworks, intermediaries are actors who possess cultural capital—such as critics and curators—who exercise key power through their own "habitus" and "taste" in the processes of cultural production, classification, and the legitimation of value, thereby profoundly influencing the formation of cultural value(Bourdieu 1984).In recent years, confronted with the ways in which digital technologies—through algorithmic logic, virtual-real interaction, and artificial intelligence—are reshaping the relations of cultural production and consumption, researchers have proposed the concept of "digital intermediaries"(Hutchinson 2023).Digital intermediaries refer to entities that, within digital platform networks, leverage algorithmic recommendation mechanisms, communities, and user-generated content as modes of dissemination to transcend physical barriers, thereby technically filtering, promoting, and evaluating diverse cultures from around the globe(Bhatia /Pathak-Shelat 2023).In this study, "digital intermediaries" specifically refer to the entire technological assemblage involved in the digitization of ICH dance. This encompasses both material hardware—such as motion capture systems and sensors with specific materiality—and software systems, including algorithms, data models, and platform architectures, that shape the logics of processing. These human and non-human actors collectively constitute an "actor-network." They are not passive tools; rather, through their technical logics and mediating rules, they actively filter, interpret, and reframe the dance culture they process, thereby exercising this normative mediating power.
The concept of "translation," as associated with digital intermediaries, transcends the linguistic notion of symbolic conversion. It refers to the process through which the logical frameworks of digital technologies reconstitute the embodied knowledge of ICH dance as "datafied knowledge." While the concept of translation was introduced by Walter Benjamin in the early 1920s (Buden et al.2009).This study draws on Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory, conceptualizing the translation process as a dynamic procedure through which actors (whether human or non-human) define roles, interests, and goals for other actors, thereby enrolling them into a stable network(Durepos 2008). As Lev Manovich contends, a core characteristic of culture in the new media era lies in "transcoding"—the continuous mutual interpenetration and reshaping between the meanings and narratives of the cultural layer and the data structures and algorithms of the computer layer(Manovich 2002).
The power relations and ethical dilemmas arising from the translation of ICH dance from "embodied knowledge" to "datafied knowledge" under the mediation of digital intermediaries—the central concern of this study—intersect with multiple disciplinary fields, including dance studies, digital humanities, and science and technology studies (STS). While existing scholarship has accumulated substantial findings across relevant dimensions, it has rarely integrated the triad of embodied translation, technological mediation, and power reconfiguration into a unified framework for critical examination. The following section reviews the extant literature across three interrelated thematic dimensions. By delineating the boundaries of each field's inquiry, this review establishes the theoretical context for the subsequent development of an analytical framework.
First, the digitization of dance corporeality constitutes a paradigmatic process of moving from representation to construction. Motion capture technology, as a core tool for the digitalization of dance corporeality, enables the high-precision recording, extraction, and representation of human movement (J. Yánez/Fraisse 2022a).As early as 1990, the American choreographer Merce Cunningham pioneered technological intervention in dance creation through his use of the software "LifeForms" for digital choreography, allowing choreographers to simulate movement sequences within a visual interface and thereby partially liberating dance from the constraints of physical time and space(Calvert et al .1991).Subsequently, Canadian choreographer Gillian Levin has continuously explored motion capture technology, data-driven performance, and telematic presence(Aristidou et al.2020). The deep integration of virtual reality and motion capture technologies has given rise to novel methods of dance virtual simulation (Tao 2024), opening new possibilities for dance pedagogy, creation, and dissemination. However, most of such studies tend to treat technology as a tool for "representing" the body, focusing on how to more precisely articulate bodily language rather than on how motion capture technology reconstructs the semantics of dance. This suggests that technology is not a transparent recording medium; rather, its inherent logic actively participates in the filtering and construction of dance meaning.
Second, the digitization of ICH dance has undergone a transformation from archiving to translation. Within the research domain of ICH dance digitization, a central concern lies in converting dynamic, living bodily practices into storable and analyzable data forms to achieve the safeguarding and transmission of ICH dance(J. P. Yánez et al. 2025). Transnational initiatives such as the "i-Treasures" project have pioneered technology-mediated interactive pedagogical models, rendering possible the "living transmission" of ICH within digital spaces. With the introduction of immersive technologies such as the metaverse, related practices are progressively shifting from static archiving toward dynamic "revitalization" within digital environments, further expanding the dimensions of ICH dissemination and experience. However, when confronted with complex dance performance scenarios, effectively capturing the augmentative role of traditional costumes and implements in the overall performance while simultaneously recording dancer movements remains a persistent challenge for current motion capture technologies. This underscores the limitations of technology in addressing complex corporeality and object interaction situated within specific cultural contexts(Ami-Williams et al. 2023).
Third, the theoretical foundations of dance cultural translation can be traced back to the dance notation system developed by Rudolf Laban, which provided a universal symbolic language for the precise recording and analysis of dance movement, thereby achieving an initial symbolic translation of bodily dynamics. Building upon this foundation, contemporary practices have further transformed indigenous ethnic folk dance cultures into expressive forms adapted for the modern stage.Lehmann's AI ballet Daphnis et Chloé exemplifies the integration of motion capture technology, data generation, and telematic presence(Wu 2023).Concurrently, research on digital intermediaries has revealed how technological systems—such as algorithms and platforms—exercise the power of cultural filtering and value judgment (Hutchinson 2023), thereby providing new theoretical resources for understanding cultural translation in the digital age. Birringer's investigation of digital theater platforms has illuminated qualitative transformations in the performer-spectator relationship under technological mediation (Birringer 2002). The juxtaposition experiment involving China's indigenous Yingge dance and robotic dance challenges conventional understandings of "bodily authority," suggesting potential futures of symbiosis between ICH dance, algorithms, and machines.
However, the scholarship exhibits lacunae across three dimensions that warrant further investigation. First, at the bodily level, while existing research acknowledges the "embodied" nature of dance, it seldom delves into the ontological transformation that this embodied knowledge undergoes during the process of translation. Second, at the technological level, studies have predominantly focused on the "application" of technologies rather than the "constitutiveness" of technological logics themselves. Third, at the level of power, although issues such as data ownership and interpretive authority have been raised, they have rarely been substantively connected to concrete digitization practices. It is precisely these three fissures that the tripartite analytical framework of thisstudy—_"Body-Knowledge""Technology-Data"and"Power-Relations"—seeks to address.
Table 1．Selected Cases in Digital Dance Research
| Evolution stage | Technological role | Core logic | Representative cases | Researcher |
| Recording and reproduction | Auxiliary tools | Technology serves as dance’s “external memory” for movement archiving, simulation rehearsal, and remote collaboration. | Life Forms software; motion capture technology (Biped); networked remote system (Active Space). | Thecla Schiphorst; Norman Badler; Lisa Naugle. |
| Interaction and generation | Collaborator | Technology shifts from passive response to active participation, engaging in real-time dialogue with dancers and co-constructing the performance text. | Real-time interactive intelligent system (CO:LA RAL); algorithmic generation (AI choreography); game engine and VR (Tomorrow’s Theater). | Robert Wechsler; Marc Downie; Klaus Obermaier. |
| Incorporation and symbiosis | Actor | Technological logic is deeply embedded in bodily expression and the performance ecology; dancers, algorithms, machines, and platforms function as interconnected nodes of action. | Digital performance, AI ballet Daphnis and Chloe; AIGC creation, FUSION; digital intermediary platforms in digital theatre; robotic dance, Yingge dance. | Gillian Lehmann; Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca; Johannes Birringer. |
Based on the foregoing analysis, a discernible disjuncture exists within extant scholarship between the concrete practices of digital technology, in-depth cultural analysis, and systematic ethical reflection—thereby constituting a significant research gap in the field of ICH dance digitization. Although most existing studies have extensively discussed the application of digital technologies in the safeguarding and transmission of ICH dance, the resulting cultural implications and ethical challenges have rarely been subjected to integrated analysis that substantively connects these three dimensions.
In response to the current phenomenon of digitization practices confronting the ICH Reba dance, this study develops an integrated analytical framework aimed at examining the translation of the Reba dance from bodily practice to datafied knowledge. This framework moves beyond conceptualizing digital technologies as mere mediating tools, instead understanding digitization as a process that profoundly shapes the transformation of the artistic ecology. It is structured around two interwoven analytical axes—"knowledge translation" and "power reconfiguration"—which run through three sequential phases: "cultural practice → technological mediation → social effects" (see Figure 3).
The starting point of this analytical framework is the conceptualization of ICH dance as a form of "embodied knowledge." This knowledge is not abstract but vivaciously inscribed in the dancer's muscle memory, breath, affect, and embeddedness in specific environments—such as the plateau geography and ritual activities. The Reba dance examined in this study exemplifies this: its bodily knowledge system is rooted in the rituals of indigenous Tibetan Bon religion, cultivated within the profound cultural soil of the Tibetan people, and historically evolved into a comprehensive performing art practiced by itinerant artists as a means of livelihood. Each demanding drumming technique and each robust bodily gesture constitutes a "bodily document" of history, social memory, and spiritual belief(Merleau-Ponty 2013) theory of the "body schema" provides a philosophical foundation for this understanding, revealing how the body, as the subject of perception and meaning generation, internalizes environmental experience as practical knowledge.
Within the transmission of the Reba dance, the apprentice’ body, through repetitive practice, internalizes specific environmental perceptions (such as the vastness of the plateau), life experiences (such as the hardships of itinerant life), and ritual emotions (such as devotional reverence) into a corporeal language. For instance, the "Three-Beat Drum"is often performed with the body leaning forward, executing rapid turns with forward and lateral bends—a bodily posture derived from the physical memory of dancers who have lived for years on the plateau (see Figure 4). However, when this embodied knowledge is extracted and inserted into new fields—whether professional dance classrooms or artistic stages—it triggers a translation from corporeal language to knowledge production. For example, Professor Zeji at Tibet University has codified the Reba dance into institutional textbooks and online courses, wherein the bodily practice of the dance's original meaning is translated into standardized, decomposable pedagogical content amenable to assessment. From a critical perspective, while such translation expands the dance's contexts and advances the extension of knowledge, it inevitably engenders a certain degree of knowledge attrition. What is not merely geographical and ritual contexts, but also the somatic texture, affective intensity, and cultural symbolic meanings rooted in specific community interactions. This suggests that once embodied knowledge is detached from its original context, its most essential dimension—the "embodiedness" that depends on holistic situatedness—faces a fate of being simplified and rendered representational.
If theatrical translation remains dependent on the live imitation of the body, the intrusion of digital technology marks a more radical deconstruction and reconstitution of dance's "embodied knowledge." Within this dimension, digital intermediaries are not neutral conduits but active translators and constructors. Through their specific material logics (such as sensor precision and algorithmic protocols) and symbolic logics (such as data models and visualization parameters), they systematically translate the dancing body, producing in this process new epistemic forms and cognitive frameworks concerning dance. From the editing techniques of dance for television, to the interactive algorithms of new media dance, to the recommendation logics of short-video platforms—all vividly demonstrate how technological mediation profoundly reshapes the modes of dance creation, dissemination, and reception.
This process of translation unfolds across two interrelated levels. On the material level, it effects a transformation from the animate body to standardized data. Bodily movements, laden with cultural memory and individual style, are disaggregated into calculable parameters—angles, spatial coordinates, and the language of camera lenses. On the perceptual and aesthetic level, it orchestrates a modulation from the holistic experience of aura to the regulation of visual parameters. The core value of the dance, which in its original context resides in the affective power and liveness of the ritual scene, becomes supplanted by technical standards such as digital imagery and virtual models. What warrants critical vigilance is that the visualization and analytical logic of technological mediation are steering cognition away from an immersive, holistic bodily experience toward an anatomical, fragmented technological scrutiny.
The translational practices of digital intermediary’s effect transformations that extend far beyond the reconfiguration of knowledge forms; they also precipitate profound restructurings of power relations and ethical dilemmas within social fields. In traditional modes of transmission, the knowledge of ICH dance is embedded in and dependent upon the bodies of its inheritors, its authority rooted in master-apprentice lineages, local identification, and the inalienable somatic sovereignty of the body. However, once dance is translated by digital technologies into "data assets," a dynamic network of contestation emerges, constituted by human and non-human actors alike—inheritors, scholars, technologies, algorithms, intellectual property protocols, and others.
Concomitantly, the power relations within this network undergo a qualitative transformation. Drawing on Michel Foucault's conception of the productive nature of power, power is not merely repressive but also "productive," generating specific "regimes of truth"(Schneck 1987) . Digital translation itself constitutes a novel form of power technology. It does not simply suppress traditional knowledge; rather, through its technical standards, operational procedures, and norms, it produces a new corpus of knowledge about ICH dance. For instance, determinations of which movement data qualify as "standard samples" emerge from these technical logics. Such knowledge of ICH dance, generated by technological rationality, in turn establishes a new normative discourse that enters contestation with the original systems of authority inherent to ICH dance. In summary, this analytical framework reveals the inherently dual character of ICH dance digitization: it is simultaneously a process of successive translation of knowledge forms and a social process of the dynamic reconfiguration of power relations.
This study takes as its core research subject the "Dance Lab" database, developed by Associate Professor Wu Zhen at the Beijing Dance Academy. This database focuses on the "Xue Reba dance"from Naqu City in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China as its primary object of documentation. The database employs a high-precision optical motion capture system (Vicon) to systematically mark and digitally record the dance movements of the inheritor, Suolang Yaci. Based on this data, the project has constructed virtual character modeling and real-time rendering systems, ultimately enabling visual presentation on digital terminals. The movement database encompasses a complete repertoire of dance actions, ranging from "Reverencing the Spirit"to the "Nine-Beat Drum" (see Figure 5).
This study is grounded in a qualitative research paradigm informed by interpretivism and critical theory, aiming to elucidate the intrinsic relationship between meaning-making and social structure, thereby revealing the knowledge translation and power relations underlying the digitization of ICH dance. To achieve this objective, the research integrates three methodological approaches—participatory observation, data and video analysis, and in-depth interviews—to analyze, from multiple dimensions, the impacts generated during the process of digital translation of the Reba dance.
Firstly,participatory Observation. To directly capture and comprehend the "embodied knowledge" that constitutes the Reba dance and the cultural context in which it is rooted, the author conducted continuous ethnographic fieldwork in Tibetan-inhabited regions—including Qamdo and Nagqu in Tibet, Yushu in Qinghai, Yunnan, and Sichuan—over a period of nearly 12 months between 2019 and 2022. Extended observation revealed that the cultural context of the Reba dance is embedded within bodily techniques, cultural beliefs, and social relations, manifesting across three interrelated dimensions. First, the expansive leaps, dense drumbeats, and rapid spinning postures characteristic of the Reba dance represent the sedimentation and transformation of the Tibetan people's long-standing lived experience within the body. Second, the cultural context of the Reba dance is rooted in local cultural beliefs. According to legend, Milarepa created the Reba dance after slaying an elephant in Qiongbu Dingqing (present-day Dingqing County, Changdou) and dancing; the flat drum used by Reba performers symbolizes elephant skin, the drumstick symbolizes elephant bone, and the skirt tassels symbolize the elephant's tail—all originating from this legend.This complete system of material-object translation converts legendary narratives into material forms, then embeds these material forms within bodily movements, ultimately rendering the dancer's body a vessel for mythological narrative. Third, traditional Reba troupes, organized along familial lines, performed itinerantly across villages, monasteries, and marketplaces. This spatial practice situates the Reba dance within the lived reality of "wandering Gypsies". Within this context, the Reba dance functions not merely as an aesthetic object but also as a medium of social intercourse and a means of livelihood. This methodological approach establishes an empirical foundation for understanding the cultural ontology and bodily logic of the research subject, thereby providing a crucial reference for subsequent analysis of the knowledge translation and power relations engendered by digitization.
Secondly,data-Video Analysis. To analyze how digital technologies translate and reconstruct the Reba dance, this study conducts a phased comparative analysis of motion capture data, synchronized video footage, and simulated animation imagery from the "Dance Lab" database. This approach not only attends to morphological transformations at the visual level but also seeks to examine how datafication reshapes the expression of meaning in dance, thereby revealing the inherent logic of digital translation across the dual dimensions of vision and data. For instance, the coordination between drumbeats and footwork, the synchronization of breath with spinning, and the visual lingering formed by the sweeping of robes and skirts—all constitute a continuum that the motion capture system, operating at tens to hundreds of frames per second, discretizes into a lattice of spatiotemporal coordinate points. Bodily nuances such as the emotions conveyed through facial expressions or subtle variations in the extension direction of fingertips may be excluded from the scope of data acquisition due to the absence of deployed markers or filtered out as "invalid movements" during noise reduction processing.
Thirdly, in-depth Interviews. To investigate the subjective experiences, interpretive meanings, and perceptions of power among different actors within the digitization process, this study conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. In 2025, the research team interviewed three individuals—Suolang Yaci inheritor of the "Xue Reba dance"; Zeji, a dance educator at the university level; and Wu Zhen, director of the "Dance Lab"—focusing on three core dimensions: the translation of bodily language, the translation of digital technologies, and power relations. This method aims to capture how these actors understand, negotiate, and shape the knowledge production, power relations, and cultural interpretation embedded in the digitization process.
The bodily practice of the Reba dance within its original field constitutes a form of contextualized body knowledge rooted in the specific geographical milieu of the snow-covered plateau and the itinerant artists' mode of life centered on "performing for a livelihood"..When it enters the dance academy classroom and the theatrical stage, a profound transformation of knowledge form is set in motion. This signifies a shift from embodied practice dependent on live interaction and cultural tacit understanding toward systematized knowledge that is reproducible and transmissible. The core mechanism of this process lies in the dual operation of decontextualization and recontextualization.
First, in the pedagogical context, translation manifests as the standardization and adaptive selection of living knowledge. As revealed through the author's participatory observation and study at the School of Arts, Tibet University, in order to facilitate classroom instruction, the freely expressive elements of the original Reba dance—those varying with context and individual differences, such as improvisational drumbeats and irregular postures—are systematically decontextualized and refined into standardized vocabularies, including fixed drum positions and postures ranging from the "One-Beat Drum" to the "Nine-Beat Drum"..Complete ritual performances are disaggregated into independent training units: basic steps, corresponding drum positions, isolated techniques, and performative combinations. Concurrently, the author observed that the academy's pedagogical curriculum, guided by considerations of kinesiological principles and training safety, simplifies or abandons technically demanding and high-risk original techniques to accommodate students of varying proficiency levels. This effects a "recontextualization," reconstituting the dance as a "textbook-based corporeal-linguistic knowledge" aligned with the logic of modern dance education. The outcome is enhanced efficiency in knowledge transmission, yet the living content of the embodied, context-bound, and emotionally immediate interaction inherent in original practice becomes partially extracted. As the author observed during fieldwork in Dêngqên, Tibet, within a performance field characterized by "the blue sky as staging and the earth as stage," Reba dancers perform in a circle, their movements and gazes engaging in live interaction with the audience. Conversely, during participation in the Reba dance course at the School of Arts, the author observed that students' gazes were predominantly fixed on their own reflections in the mirrors positioned directly ahead. This is a consequence of performance space being segmented into "training positions," and epitomizes the replacement of ritualistic "co-presence" with disciplinary "self-contemplation." In an interview, Zeji, Associate Professor at Tibet University, frankly stated:
"Reba dance possesses highly sophisticated technical skills. If we do not deconstruct and slow down the demanding original techniques, students will find them difficult to master and will also face safety risks. However, movements refined through pedagogical extraction are, to some extent, inevitably detached from their original context" (interview with Zeji, December 2025).
Secondly, in the realm of stage creation, translation manifests as an aesthetic reconfiguration from the ritualistic to the visual. Based on the author's observational analysis of several Reba dance stage works—including The Exultant Plateau, Mystic Drum Dance, The Cloth-Bearers, and The Drum of Life—it was found that choreographers, in adapting to modern theatrical aesthetics, translate traditional ritual performances into stage texts that prioritize visual expression. The performance field shifts from the open plateau environment to the enclosed proscenium stage, and the function of the body undergoes a corresponding transformation: from a medium of participation in collective ritual to a visual vehicle for shaping characters, organizing space, and advancing narrative. Field observation records indicate that the original ritualistic circular formation and its fluid, interactive patterns are replaced on stage by meticulously choreographed linear arrangements, layered imagery, and focal contrasts. For instance, to intensify the visual climax, technically demanding elements such as the "Three-Beat Drum" and "Six-Beat Drum"—integral components of the original performance—are often accentuated, prolonged, and foregrounded in stage works, with their technical virtuosity significantly amplified.
In the process of stage translation, the researcher observed that complete performance routines are selectively adapted, with only the most visually appealing segments being extracted for choreographic creation. The intimate, bidirectional, and collectively experienced interactions characteristic of the original environment are replaced by the distanced, unidirectional mode of spectatorship inherent to theatrical relations. Alongside the attenuation of dance's corporeal language, the tacit understanding and emotional resonance rooted in shared cultural background are also diminished. Inheritors and educators of the Reba dance place great emphasis on ensuring that stage creation is predicated upon safeguarding the dance's stylistic essence.
Whether the Reba dance is refined into academic teaching materials or choreographed into complete dance works, the most unalterable aspect is its style and characteristics. Everyone should follow the "roots" of the Reba dance, preserve its style, and then carry out creative transformation and innovative development of the Reba dance (interview with Zeji, December 2025).
However, the attrition encountered in the pedagogical and stage translation of the Reba dance often lies beyond the control of the actors involved. The dilution of bodily memory, the reconfiguration of cultural context, and the weakening of subjectivity are inevitable consequences of this translation process; the only variable is the degree of such attrition. This phenomenon finds parallel validation in the cross-cultural transmission of dance. In the indigenization of ballet in China, representative works such as The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl incorporated elements of Chinese classical dance and opera(Ma/Meng-jie 2024) , which likewise precipitated transformations in the techniques and aesthetics derived from ballet's original cultural context, engendering a form of creative attrition. Consequently, the standardization and stage-oriented translation undergone by the Reba dance is, in essence, a trajectory from localized bodily knowledge toward systematized artistic knowledge. This process simultaneously shapes the knowledge form and the antecedent framework within which the dance enters the digital field.
The digital translation of the Reba dance constitutes, in essence, a systematic parsing and reconstruction of dance's corporeal language enacted by digital intermediaries—including hardware devices, algorithms, and operational protocols—according to their inherent logic. This process is not a transparent replication; rather, it converts vibrant, holistic bodily practice into storable, computable, and visualizable discrete data through a set of technical procedures. Taking the construction process of the "Dance Lab" database as an empirical case, this study employs data-video analysis and in-depth interviews with the project director, Wu Zhen, to examine in detail the technical pathways of this translation and its underlying mechanisms of knowledge filtering.
The digital translation process of "Dance Lab" is rooted in the theoretical framework of digital dance, aiming to explore the methodological advantages of motion capture technology over traditional imagery in data preservation and analysis. The project employs a dual-track documentation protocol combining green screen video recording with optical motion capture (Vicon), to simultaneously acquire visual documentation and quantifiable skeletal dynamics data, ultimately constructing a digital archive that integrates both the precision of movement analysis and the integrity of cultural context.
Specifically, the translation process commences with the "marking" of the inheritor's body. The dancer wears a motion capture suit equipped with reflective markers, which are positioned according to technical conventions on the major joints of the body and on the prop Reba drum. The performance is conducted in front of a green screen. During this process, cameras track the markers in real time, converting their trajectories into a series of three-dimensional spatial coordinates, thereby generating continuous skeletal motion data. This optical motion capture system constitutes the material core of the translation process. Subsequently, the raw coordinate data are imported into three-dimensional software, driving a simplified "skeletal animation" model composed of points and lines. Leveraging tools such as game engines, the project endeavors to achieve a 1:1 full-dimensional simulation, integrating visual symbols including movement, costumes, and implements. Finally, all data are structurally stored in the database, forming a digital archive that can be accessed, analyzed, and visually reproduced.
Based on this, the present study reveals that this ostensibly objective technical process embeds multiple mechanisms of filtering and attrition. First, the modular logic of data acquisition fragments the holistic integrity of the original performance. To facilitate processing efficiency and data clarity, motion capture systems typically isolate the body from sound and environment. Wu Zhen, the project's technical director, corroborated this technical limitation:
"Due to technical limitations, we were compelled to capture the dance movements and vocal parts separately. Although this recording method preserved the basic material, it disrupted the vibrant integrity of the performance as a seamless integration of song and dance, thereby weakening the intrinsic connections between movement and vocal rhythm, as well as between breath and emotion." (Interview with Wu Zhen, December 2025)
Secondly, the material configuration of sensors predetermines the boundaries of data, creating a corporeal blind spot shaped by technological subconsciousness. The placement protocol for markers—concentrated on the moving joints—is not neutral; it predetermines both the focus and the blind spots of the technology's "vision."
"In the actual data acquisition process, markers were primarily placed on the prop Reba drum and the major joints of the body, resulting in a significant loss of key stylistic details, such as the subtle manipulations of the fingers and the rich variations in facial expressions" (interview with Wu Zhen, December 2025).
This technical regime, co-constituted by hardware configurations and software algorithms, implicitly establishes the criteria for what constitutes significant movement. Macroscopic, large-scale limb displacements are meticulously recorded, while subtle, stylized expressions and the rhythmic nuances of fingertips are systematically disregarded. The resultant "data body" is a model with clearly delineated skeletal structures but impoverished emotional detail—a representation separated by an insurmountable chasm from the dancer's "phenomenal body," with its rich expressive subtlety.
Ultimately, the symbolic nature of data renders cultural context and lived experience invisible. Digital translation pursues standardized, quantifiable morphological recording, yet the deeper meanings of dance reside precisely in those cultural situations and personal experiences that elude capture by coordinate parameters.
"When I watched the inheritor's performance live, what struck me was not merely the movements, but rather the vivid sense of life and profound cultural context inherent in the dance. The ease, the simplicity, and the life experiences and environmental imprints revealed through the lyrics collectively constitute the soul of the dance. However, current data recording methods cannot carry these non-visual, experiential cultural connotations. This results in a database capable of precisely teaching students how to imitate the movements, yet unable to convey the life experiences and cultural logic underlying why one dances in this manner" (interview with Wu Zhen, December 2025).
This systematic exclusion of cultural context results in a digital archive that, while preserving form, simultaneously strips away the very soil from which meaning emerges, potentially yielding a "decontextualized" digital specimen. Certainly, technologists continually envision how cutting-edge technologies might interpret dance. Breakthroughs have been achieved in large-scale models for dance creation utilizing artificial intelligence generation technologies, offering new possibilities for micro-movement language and scene reconstruction. However, project director Wu Zhen revealed the profound bottleneck that currently persists:
"The current development of large-scale models for dance movement generation remains in its early stages... Existing models predominantly employ a 'prompt-motion database' matching mechanism, which is essentially a form of precise movement retrieval based on tags rather than genuine, ground-up generation of stylized movements." Due to the lack of high-quality, high-precision professional dance datasets—such as those for the Reba dance—large-scale models are unable to truly comprehend or generate movements with cultural accuracy. This means that the filtering and attrition occurring during the data acquisition phase directly determine the upper limits of AI models' cognitive and creative capabilities (interview with Wu Zhen, December 2025).
It is evident, therefore, that within the dimension of digital translation, current technologies for movement generation remain confined to the replication and recombination of dance movements, as yet unable to truly capture or reproduce the intrinsic, holistic style of dance. This predicament represents a pervasive challenge inherent in the integration of bodily arts with the logic of digital technology. As early as Merce Cunningham's experiments with computer algorithms in choreography within the realm of modern dance, a similar essential contradiction was confronted. His practice of technology-mediated choreography demonstrated that the process of translating continuous, emotionally charged bodily expression into discrete, determinate, and abstract digital codes is invariably accompanied by the filtering, simplification, and inevitable attrition of information. Consequently, the stylistic translation dilemma encountered in the digitization of the Reba dance embodies the inherent tension between the analogical nature of embodied experience and digital computation.
The digitization of the Reba dance constitutes not only a translation of embodied practice but also a profound process of power reconfiguration. Based on participatory observation of the entire "Dance Lab" project and in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders, this study finds that digital translation, while transforming knowledge forms, simultaneously translates the cultural power relations bound to them. The traditional power network, rooted in the body and community, is dismantled and reorganized during datafication, giving rise to new actors, new rights discourses, and new ethical dilemmas.
First, digital translation reconstitutes the subject position of the inheritor, precipitating an identity shift from cultural actor to data provider. In field observation, the researcher noted that when the inheritor Sonam Yangdrol donned the motion capture suit and underwent standardized recording before a green screen, his body was inserted into an unfamiliar technical syntax. The original bodily narrative, dependent on muscle memory and cultural intuition, was reduced to standardized movements requiring repeated adjustments to meet capture requirements. Interviews with the inheritor reveal that this process is often accompanied by cognitive rupture and a sense of disorientation in bodily perception. They are temporarily transformed from subjects who freely interpret culture within specific contexts into data objects to be observed and measured. This shift in subject position exposes a common power asymmetry in the early stages of digitization: technological logic becomes the dominant framework, while the inheritor's bodily experience and cultural interpretation face the risk of marginalization.
Secondly, the digitalization process has transformed the ambiguous cultural common rights into clear data ownership, which has triggered multi-level rights definition challenges(J. Yánez & Fraisse, 2022a).In the traditional inheritance system, the knowledge authority of the Reba dance is rooted in the master-disciple lineage, local identity and collective practice, which is a cultural common right based on ethics and customs. When digitalization converts the living inheritance into definable digital assets through legal tools such as the "Informed Consent Form" and the "Data Collection Agreement", the inheritor Zeji clearly analyzed the resulting hierarchical structure of rights in the interview:
The rights involved in the digitization of the Reba dance exhibit a three-tiered structure: First, the specific movements recorded in the database originate from the individual practice of the inheritor, Sonam Yangdrol; therefore, the right of individual interpretation should belong to the inheritor. Second, the overall construction and operation of the project are led by its director, Wu Zhen; accordingly, the rights of project interpretation and management belong to the project team. Third, as an art form rooted in the social life and cultural traditions of the Tibetan people, the essential cultural ownership and ultimate rights of attribution for the Reba dance should belong to the ethnic community that created and nurtured it (interview with Zeji, December 2025).
This discourse reveals that digitization does not dissolve power but rather complicates and renders it explicit, giving rise to a multidimensional rights structure in which individuals, project teams, and the source community coexist. However, legal intellectual property rights—such as software copyrights and model copyrights—are often exclusively attributed to the project-hosting institutions, while traditional cultural common rights lack direct legal articulation within the data property rights framework, thereby sowing the seeds for potential disputes over ownership. Ultimately, at the level of data application, the tensions among competing rights claims materialize into concrete ethical and legal dilemmas.
Although the intellectual property generated by the project is legally clearly attributed to the undertaking unit, the specific application scenarios are strictly restricted by individual rights. If a digital avatar needs to be created based on the data of a specific inheritor, prior explicit authorization from the inheritor regarding matters such as portrait rights and performer rights must be obtained. (interview with Zeji, December 2025).
This implies that even when institutions hold ownership of the data, the boundaries of its development and utilization remain constrained by the individual authorization of the inheritor. The inheritor may employ the data for personal endeavors, such as live-streaming commerce in their hometown, while the project team may intend to utilize it for a public-interest digital museum. Consensus between the two parties must be achieved through ongoing negotiation, which tests whether the project has genuinely established a collaborative mechanism grounded in prior informed consent, sustained participation, and equitable benefit-sharing.
The digital translation of ICH is also a translation of power. It disperses bodily sovereignty into data property rights, decomposes cultural authority into multi-party contestation, and submits ethical consensus to the scrutiny of legal texts. Through in-depth participatory observation and interviews, this study reveals that this process is not a simple matter of technological empowerment, but rather a tension-filled "socio-technical" construction. Only by embedding an ethical and legal framework that respects cultural subjectivity, ensures clear rights attribution, and promotes equitable benefit-sharing directly into the technical process can digitization potentially shift from a form of cultural extraction toward a genuinely just and sustainable mode of cultural co-creation.
Based on the foregoing analysis of the Reba dance's translation processes across the "Body-Knowledge," "Technology-Data," and "Power-Relations" dimensions, it becomes evident that the digitization of ICH dance is far from a neutral technological process; rather, it constitutes a profound practice of knowledge politics. More importantly, the ethical dilemmas exposed throughout this process, along with the underlying power mechanisms, warrant critical reflection.
The core findings of this study first point to a fundamental value dilemma inherent in digital translation. On one hand, digital technologies, with their powerful capacities for archiving, replication, and dissemination, offer unprecedented possibilities for the preservation of ICH dance in the face of transmission crises. Through motion capture and database construction, dance can be liberated from the biological constraints of individual bodies, acquiring digital archives capable of permanent storage and infinite reproduction. This "empowerment" manifests as a significant enhancement in the accessibility and analyzability of knowledge, enabling its integration into broader networks of education, research, and creative circulation. The "Dance Lab" project exemplifies this logic of empowerment in practice.
On the other hand, the realization of this "preservation" and "empowerment" is precisely contingent upon the systematic stripping and disempowerment of the living dance in its original form. As the foregoing analysis demonstrates—whether in the decontextualization effected by pedagogical and stage adaptation, or in the technical filtering of corporeal language inherent in motion capture—digital translation, in the process of converting bodily knowledge into datafied knowledge, inevitably extracts it from the networks of meaning in which it is embedded. The inheritor, once a subject of cultural practice, risks being reduced to a data source to be captured and defined. The cultural common rights rooted in the community face the danger of being rendered hollow within the logic of data property rights.
This dilemma of "preservation as stripping, empowerment as disempowerment" profoundly reveals the inherent conflict between the logic of digital technology and the ontological characteristics of living cultural heritage: technology pursues universal, standardized "information," while cultural life depends on the unique, contextualized "aura." The former can be infinitely replicated independent of any subject; the latter can only be experienced and transmitted within specific bodies, fields, and relations. When digital archives, in the name of "fidelity," produce precise yet flattened "data bodies," what is filtered out are precisely those dimensions of lived texture that elude quantification—the dancer's respiratory rhythm, the subtle nuances of improvisation, the immediate interaction with the audience, and the sacred atmosphere of the ritual site itself. These "invisible" dimensions constitute the core elements of ICH dance's "lived vitality."
This study contends that digital intermediaries must be understood as cultural-political actors that exercise normative power. They are not transparent, neutral conduits but rather technological systems embedded with specific values, cognitive frameworks, and power relations. From the placement of markers and the logic of modular capture in the "Dance Lab" project to the structural design of the database itself, each step embodies the technological system's pre-judgment and construction of "what constitutes important dance knowledge."
This technological normative power operates on two levels. At the explicit level, through protocols, property rights, and standards, it directly prescribes who has the authority to access, utilize, and interpret data. As the research observations demonstrate, following the inheritor Sonam Yangdrol's signing of the Informed Consent Form, his bodily data entered a property rights network jointly defined by legal frameworks and technological platforms. The institution holds software copyrights, the inheritor retains individual portrait rights and performer's rights, yet the community as the cultural source—its "cultural common rights"—finds no corresponding position within this legal translation. At the implicit level, it exerts power by shaping cognitive frameworks. When dance is presented as a series of skeletal motion trajectories, an anatomical and mechanical discourse quietly supplants cultural interpretations concerning ritual, emotion, and community memory. As Foucault asserted, the production of knowledge is inseparable from the exercise of power. By producing new discursive systems about ICH, digital intermediaries do not merely document culture but profoundly reconfigure the power to define and interpret that culture. Reflections drawn from interviews with project directors and technical experts reveal that even initiatives motivated by preserving and promoting cultural heritage are inevitably implicated in this operation of normative power through their very technological pathways. Consequently, the ethical problématique of digitization concerns not merely the outcome of whether data is misused, but more fundamentally the process of how knowledge is framed and produced by technology. Thus, from the moment of technological decision-making, ICH digitization projects are already latently engaged in the filtering of cultural values and the allocation of power relations.
The foregoing analysis demonstrates that the fundamental paradox of digital translation and its embedded normative power cannot be completely dissolved. Faced with this dilemma, neither a simplistic rejection of digitization nor a blind embrace of techno-instrumentalism offers a viable path forward. The crucial task lies in how to reposition ethical considerations from post-hoc reflection to the core of technological design and collaborative practice, thereby exploring a model of "principled digital collaboration".Based on interviews and observations incorporating the perspectives of ICH inheritors, scholars, and technical experts, this study proposes the following principled recommendations, aiming to provide a critical constructive framework for future practice:
This study has examined three core research questions and yielded the following findings:
First, in the process of the Reba dance's migration from its original ritual field into pedagogical and stage systems, its bodily knowledge undergoes an initial translation involving decontextualization and recontextualization. While this process generates systematized knowledge amenable to transmission, it also results in the attrition of bodily memory, cultural rootedness, and situated interaction.
Second, digital intermediaries integrating motion capture, three-dimensional engines, and related technologies perform a secondary technological translation of the dance through their modular capture protocols, material configurations, and algorithmic logics. Although this constructs precise data archives, it simultaneously filters, simplifies, and reconstructs the dance's semantics and expressions, producing a localized and flattened "data body" that exacerbates the stripping away of cultural wholeness and emotional dimensionality.
Third, these dual translations collectively precipitate a fundamental reconfiguration of power structures. The "cultural common rights" originally rooted in bodily practice and communal identity are converted into a network of "data property rights" defined by legal protocols and technological frameworks. Within this dynamic network, multiple actors—including inheritors, institutions, technical systems, and algorithms—engage in contestation, thereby engendering novel ethical dilemmas concerning interpretive authority, subjecthood, and digital justice.
This study makes three interrelated theoretical contributions at the intersection of dance studies, cultural heritage, and science and technology studies (STS). At the methodological level, it transcends the research paradigm that treats digital technologies as mere instruments, proposing an integrated analytical framework that synthesizes "body, technology, and power," thereby offering a critical perspective for understanding the generation and transformation of dance knowledge in the digital age. At the level of problematic awareness, it advances the discourse on ICH digitization from a technical debate over "preservation versus development" into a critical examination of knowledge politics and ethical justice, revealing the essential nature of digitization as a process of cultural power reconfiguration and social relation restructuring. At the level of theoretical application, through the empirical case of Reba dance digitization, it vividly demonstrates the explanatory power of Latour's "actor-network" theory and Foucault's "knowledge-power" framework within the field of cultural heritage, particularly illuminating how non-human actors—technological objects, algorithms, and protocols—co-constitute cultural order and ethical relations alongside human actors.
This study, while based on a single yet in-depth typical case, provides rich qualitative insights; however, the generalizability of its findings requires further validation through more diverse and cross-cultural comparative studies. Moreover, digital technologies are evolving rapidly, with new tools represented by generative artificial intelligence rapidly transforming the landscape of cultural production and preservation, necessitating ongoing tracking of their ethical implications. Future research may be extended in the following directions: First, conducting comparative studies to examine the similarities and differences in translation mechanisms and ethical issues under different national or regional ICH dance contexts and diverse technological pathways (such as AI generation, virtual-real interaction, etc.). Second, undertaking longitudinal studies to examine the dynamic evolution and actual impact of rights relations in the long-term application of data assets from already digitized ICH projects.
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