XBox 360's Kinetic "Dance Central" Video Game

We've been keeping our eyes on the motion-control video game technology that Xbox has been developing. At one point, it was called Project Natal. Now, it has debuted as Kinect and it's commercially available. Previous generations of gamers have used controllers to play on earlier consoles. Then, Nintendo popularized the wireless controller with its Wii remote. Now, you don't need a controller with Kinect. When you move your body, use gestures, and speak out loud; this new add-on to the Xbox 360 will track your movements and commands. One of the early Kinect games is Dance Central, which allows gamers to hit specific poses in a rhythm-based game. And this has curious implications on how future generations will perceive dance.

Remember Dance Dance Revolution? In the early 2000s, this was the go-to party game with its shiny dance pad controller. You would tap up, down, left, and right with your feet in various combinations that played on screen. Some folks even elevated the gaming to a form of performance art. In the mid 2000s, Guitar Hero took off and brought rhythm-based gaming to a facsimile of music performance. Playing that game and others like Rock Band allowed anyone to experience the fantasy of being a rock star without every having taking a music lesson. All you had to do was push the buttons. The result? Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people were exposed to a music-playing experience they may never have pursued without hard work and practice. Plus, younger generations were getting exposed to genres of music that didn't require illegal downloading of mp3s online.

So, with Kinect and Dance Central, it looks like a new crowd of gamers are going to embrace a form of choreographed dancing that will be a populist experience. With the level of difficulty set to easy for a game like Dance Central, anyone with the ability to move can simulate a dance experience without ever having to take a class or to train. Will it make better street dancers for the future? Probably not. But it could introduce someone who's completely new to dancing to the joy of movement. And then later, they may move on to taking an actual class or learning a dance style.

One danger is if the public's perception of dancing only gets limited to choreographed dancing. What we see as team choreography on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew or in movies like Step Up 3D is easily digested by the average viewer because it creates a pretty picture on screen. The mainstream public can appreciated choreographed dancing because even if you don't know the moves, you can see how synchronized a group is moving with the music. It's an amazing visual to see a group of people moving as one. But hopefully, we won't forget freestyle dancing when it's done by soloists. This is the heart of street dance culture. And unlike choreographed dancing, it's not always pretty on screen and it can be harder for mainstream audiences to read. Maybe that's what it boils down to: uninformed mainstream audiences are looking for the "cool moves," while street dancers appreciate the feel and groove behind our dance.

This kind of video gaming isn't a bad thing for our culture. Dance Dance Revolution didn't lead to a watering down of street dance. Youtube, Hollywood movies, and reality TV shows have had more of a detrimental effect, or so it could be argued. DDR is a rhythm experience and can't fully encompass the soulful experience that one endures when you freestyle to the music. The same could be said for Dance Central. You're just gaming without a pad or controller. Perhaps we might see certain elements of street dance styles introduced into future renditions of Dance Central. That could be an interesting way to see street dance and gaming culture collide.