Cataloging intangible cultural heritage on the web

In this article an initiative to preserve the Cypriot folk dance heritage is reported. The project aims to create a publicly accessible digital archive of folk dances that does not only include video recordings, commonly used to document dance performances. In addition to rare video material held by local cultural institutions, state-of-the-art motion capture technologies are utilized to record and archive high quality motion data of expert dancers performing these traditional dances. Apart from the goal of preserving this intangible cultural heritage by digitizing it, the project is interested in increasing the awareness of the local community to its dance heritage. To achieve this a 3D video game for children is developed to teach these folk dances to the younger generations.