Abstract: 
    
            
                    The democratization of high-end, affordable and off-the-shelf sensors and  
displays triggered an explosion in the exploration of interaction and  
projection in arts. Although mostly witnessed in interactive artistic  
installations (e.g. museums and exhibitions), performing arts also explore  
such technologies, using interaction and augmented reality as part of the  
performance. Such works often emerge from collaborations between artists and  
scientists. Despite being antonymic in appearance, we advocate that both  
fields can greatly benefit from this type of collaboration. Since 2006 the  
authors of this paper (from a research laboratory and a national ballet  
company) have collaborated on augmenting a ballet performance using a  
dancer’s movements for interaction. We focus on large productions using  
high-end motion capture and projection systems to allow dancers to interact  
with virtual elements on an augmented stage in front of several hundred  
people. To achieve this, we introduce an ‘augmented reality engineer’,  
whose role is to design the augmented reality systems and interactions  
according to a show’s aesthetic and choreographic message, and to control  
them during the performance alongside light and sound technicians. Our last  
production: Debussy3.0 is an augmented ballet based on La Mer by Claude  
Debussy, featuring body interactions by one of the dancers and backstage  
interactions by the augmented reality engineer. For the first time, we  
explored 3D stereoscopy as a display technique for augmented reality and  
interaction in real-time on stage. The show was presented at Biarritz Casino  
in December 2013 in front of around 700 people. In this paper, we present the  
Debussy3.0 augmented ballet both as a result of the use of augmented reality  
in performing arts and as a guiding thread to provide feedback on  
arts-science collaboration. First, we will describe how the ballet was  
constructed aesthetically, technically and in its choreography. We will  
discuss and provide feedback on the use of motion capture and stereoscopy  
techniques in a live show and will then broaden the scope of discussion,  
providing feedback on art-science collaboration, the traps and benefits for  
both parties, and the positive repercussions it can bring to a laboratory  
when working on industrial projects.