Archive for the ‘education/learning’ Category

Jody Oberfelder

So you’ve just finished a dance film, and you think it’s pretty good. You raised funds and invested in talent, crew and high (for you) production values. The final cut has just been completed and you are ready to show it to the world. But how? For most dance filmmakers, the first step in their distribution plan is to have their film shown in festivals. While some festivals offer cash prizes, the primary benefit of having your film shown in festivals isn’t to earn money but to gain recognition and acclaim from the festival communities that could lead to future opportunities for you.

Besides the 100+ dance film festivals around the world there are tens of thousands of other film festivals that you could submit your dance film to. The options are overwhelming, and no one has the time or resources to submit to them all, so it’s important to develop a strategy and take it step by step.

Read the rest of this entry »

Moment by Katrina McPherson

The University of Utah’s Departments of Modern Dance and Film and Media Arts are offering two opportunities to work with award-winning Scottish dance filmmaker, Katrina McPherson, in her first American residencies. Set in the beautiful mountain city of Salt Lake this two-week workshop offers in-depth experience for choreographers and filmmakers in shooting and editing dance for the camera. Ms. McPherson will hold screenings, discussions, demonstrations, and will oversee the creation of screendance studies by each participant. Editing facilities and personnel will be available, as will dancers for choreographic projects.

Weekend Workshop: September 15 – 17 — Weeklong Intensive Workshop: September 19 – 24

An evening of student works will be presented on Thursday, September 15, 2011 in conjunction with the International Dance for the Camera Festival.

For more information and to register for the workshops go to the Festival website.

National Conference
Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth (UK)
8-10 September, 2011

Digital Futures in Dance is an opportunity for artists, promoters, producers, venues, academics and creative and digital companies to come together to discuss future possibilities for dance and technology. With an increasing growth in interdisciplinary practice, Digital Futures in Dance investigates how new digital technologies create new conditions for choreographing and presenting dance. The conference is structured around three interrelated themes explored through presentations, workshops, performances and installations:

The Expanded Stage: Stage, screen and bodies – What will be the stages for dance in the future?

New Body Intelligence: Body data as raw material – How will new intelligence of the body influence choreography in the future?

Social Interaction: Mobile and interactive technology devices – How will increased interactivity influence the creation and reception of dance in the future?

The programme will feature international artists and researchers across the dance, technology and media spectrums including Jonah Bokaer, Billie Cowie, Marlon Barrios-Solano, Harriet Macauley | Pair Dance, Johannes Birringer, Renana Raz, Mark Coniglio, and Marina Tsartsara.

See the full programme here.

Today at 4am USA Eastern Standard Time, and 6pm in Brisbane Australia, the interactive Waterwheel platform will launch with a crew of collaborators and audience members from around the world converging online in real time. Waterwheel is an ongoing interactive, collaborative platform for performance, presentation and exchange exploring water, as a topic of politics, science and metaphor. The brain child of Brussel’s born Suzon Fuks, a media artist, choreographer and director, the project developed out of her growing interest in global water politics and the richness of the topic for artistic expression.

Last week as the site was in its final stages of tweaking, Fuks gave me a tour of the platform and showed me all the things it can do. Along with her team of technicians and artists Fuks has created a very sophisticated site, one that works as well or better than most social media sites or online conferencing platforms. With years of experience designing intermedia and live networked performances, Fuks knew what she wanted, and what was needed to achieve the intentions of the site. Each section of the site is modeled to emulate some function of water, with the net result that it “flows” together seamlessly, and feeds and regenerates the overall experience for everyone who uses it.

When you first encounter the site on the homepage there is a beautiful wheel with 40 concentric rings that ripple with the latest media content that has been uploaded to the site. From there you can explore the raw media, or you can enter one of the “Taps” which are highly sophisticated real-time spaces to hold networked performances, presentations, workshops, or exchanges. All of the media up-loaded to the Waterwheel by users is available for real-time mixing and integration on the Taps as well as live video, audio, and drawing tools.

Another component of the site is a map showing “Fountains” going on all around the world. A Fountain can be anything flowing from the Taps (ie current or up-coming Taps), or they can be events about water that users submit to the site. These could be a performance or presentation, an exhibition or conference, a book launch or a film premiere. The Fountains are the place for users to promote their projects or events, or find other similar projects of interest and upcoming events happening nearby or around the world.

While the Waterwheel is focused on water, the platform itself is incredibly facile and could be useful for any group that wants to converge around a specific area of interest. I asked Fuks about whether she would be making more platforms like this in the future. In her reply, she emphasized that exploring water topics remains her primary motivation, however she does see the marketability of the platform they have designed and they are considering commercializing the technology as a means of funding Waterwheel.

The success of the platform is in the hands of the people who use it, so dive on in and splash around in the beautiful liquid world of Waterwheel.

Details of the Launch Event:

On Monday 22 August 2011, the new Waterwheel project and website will be launched at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane from 6pm, and online on the Waterwheel website with a program of free performances.

Kirk Woolford: Image documenting the making of Will.0.w1sp

Enhance your work by learning how to use the latest low-cost motion capture technology.

This two day workshop will focus on how motion capture can be used for performances and installations in conjunction with lower-cost, or free, tools.

Working in the studios at the University of Sussex as well as on location on the South Downs and in Brighton city centre, Kirk Woolford will lead the workshop, sharing his 16 years of experience as an artist/designer and software developer.

Kirk will also be inviting participants to join him in creating a large-scale piece to be shown during the Brighton White Nights festival in October 2011.

This is an invaluable opportunity to work with a highly experienced artist, working at the cutting edge of the digital and creative industries.

03 – 04 September 2011
University of Sussex, Brighton
10.00am – 5.00pm
£80 including lunch
For further details and how to book go to www.southeastdance.org.uk