VRChat dance communities: “Bringing some love back in the world”

At the Birds of a Feather (BOF) “Dancers of VRChat” session organised by Carousel at Siggraph2022, the speakers of 6 different dancer communities exposed their motivations, their experience and their wishes for the future of dancing in Virtual Reality.

Bringing some love back in the world

The Covid19 pandemic, resulting in social isolation due to the stop of most cultural and outgoing life, has obviously been a trigger for several speakers to join VRChat. With the Covid crisis, several speakers have started or intensified their activities reaching from dance teaching, to agency for professional dances via community work-out. DustBunny from the Virtual Reality dance Academy feels that by providing dance courses of her Virtual Reality Dance Academy she has contributed to bring back some love in the world.

In VRChat you can just be who you are

Yet the COVID crisis is not the only reason for joining and investing in VR dancing. Xia from CalibrateVR joined VRChat because of its open en understanding community that accepts you whatever you are, whatever you voice sound like and whatever you look like.

VRChat is a society not just a game.

The important social role of the dancing communities came naturally up as the prime driver for being in VRChat for all the speakers. Mochibunny from Club Poseidon emphasized that VRChat was actually a society, much more than simply a video game.

Chatmans explains that his non profit inclusive VRDancing community, that organizes Zumba and other dancing events, is a big group of friends. Archantos stresses the opportunity for the poles dancers to come together at the Virtual Reality Pole Dancing community he created to demonstrate new moves and progress together.

Having a job in VR

Several speakers have transformed their online dancing passion in a business. Dustbunny has stopped her dance teacher career in brick and mortar dance studios to create the Virtual Reality Dance Academy where she teaches Belly dancing, Ballroom dancing, Hiphop and many other dance styles.

Virgo4u, creator of Club Zodiac, thinks that marketing is really big in VR and that many jobs will be created for designing avatars.

Will body equipment not be needed anymore soon?

Several speakers report on equipment being expensive, bulky and cumbersome. Archantos hopes that the technology will evolve to the point where the dancers will not need to strap equipment on their bodies anymore.

Dustbunny explains that Boolroom dancing without touch is difficult, yet Chatmans explains that the current haptic options, he has tried, are yet very primitive.