We spent the year building a 3D ballet reference app. Free full access to anyone willing to tell us what it gets wrong
UPDATE: Thank you! We're taking the app down for now and moving back to testing mode, details at the bottom of this post.
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Hi all, posting with mod approval.
Friends and I have been building Ballet Atlas, a 3D reference app where you can rotate a figure through any step, slow it way down, scrub frame by frame, and read how the different schools name and teach it. It's meant as a study aid to use alongside class, not a "learn ballet from your phone" thing. The app says as much itself.
Some honest context, I come from live theater, not dance. I've checked every entry against references and friends who are dancers. We've put a ton of work into tuning the animations, but there's a big difference between what technique my friends and I can agree on, and what the eyes of an entire community like r/adultballetdancers can find.
20 of the 103 movements are free (iOS only for now). If you're willing to poke at it and tell me what's mislabeled or what looks off, comment or DM me and I'll send a code that unlocks the full library for free. Even a brief message like "this is wrong, that's wrong" would help a lot. And we actively implement feedback, a dancer asked for real tempo control recently and the feature shipped within the week.
App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/app/ballet-atlas/id6783134763
Thanks!
Alex
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UPDATE: Thank you all! This is genuinely great feedback and I appreciate every person who took the time. It's clear we're not ready for prime time, and rather than patch over quality issues, we've decided to take the app down from the App Store in the next few hours and re-enter a much more thorough beta phase, open to testers.
Every movement gets re-reviewed before it comes back we started exploring motion capture data options today, and we'll be working closely with ballet professionals, teachers especially, with much deeper scrutiny than our animations have had. Several people in this thread already offered exactly that kind of help, which made this decision easier.
If you'd like to be a tester or want to help in any way, feel free to comment or DM me.
Thanks again! Alex