Archive for the ‘education/learning’ Category

Organized and directed by Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects, the Dance Film Lab is  a community-building, monthly series for dance filmmakers to gather;  share information, methods, and tools; and address technical, practical and artistic challenges.

The Lab has three distinct facets:

• Moderated Screenings, which bring dance filmmakers together to present raw footage, drafts, works-in-progress and newly finished films to their peers for artist-centered, constructive feedback.
• Practicum Sessions where artists gather for hands-on, in-depth skill-building centered on peer-to-peer exchanges of techniques, methodologies and knowledge.
• Master Classes led by top professionals focusing on filming/production, post-production and distribution.

Dance Film Lab is a program of Dance Films Association, hosted by Dance New Amsterdam, and funded by LMCC’s Fund for Creative Communities.

The Lab is free to all DFA and DNA members– with DFL Masterclasses offered at the significantly discounted rate of $10.

Next Dance Film Lab event:

August 15 – 7:00-9:00 pm
Practicum with Zach Morris
Lighting/3 Point Lighting

DNA: 280 Broadway, 2nd Floor (entrance on Chambers) | New York, NY 10007

This is a call for proposals for performances/presentations (of 5 minutes each maximum) for the launch of WATERWHEEL  - with a deadline for proposals of 12 August 2011. The entire performance/presentation program will be no longer than 30-45min.

WATERWHEEL, a new online platform exploring ‘water’ as a topic and metaphor, will be launched on 22 August, in Brisbane (Australia) AND will take place live online on the TAP at 6.30pm – find your time here.

The TAP is an online, real-time venue and forum, workshop and stage for live networked performance and presentation. Here you can create and collaborate, rehearse and remix, present and exchange, participate and communicate—privately as a crew or publicly with an audience. The Tap provides tools for live networking and real-time media mixing.

Here is more info on how to use WATERWHEEL and view a guided tour of the TAP.

Kinect Installation at Singapore Dance Fest

When Microsoft unleashed the Kinect last fall as an add-on for Xbox 360, hackers and geeks the world over were chomping at the bit to break in and figure out what it can do. That’s because the Kinect is a $150 piece of equipment that contains a super sophisticated camera that can detect depth (3D), color, speed and motion, as well as stereophonic microphones that can place sounds in space. As a result it’s basically a rudimentary brain that has both sight and sound senses and can capture and respond to the world like a sentient being (almost).

The list of Kinect hacks has been piling up since it was released last November, and it will keep growing thanks to Microsoft’s new Kinect Developers kit for Windows (apparently a Mac kit is in the works). Among the coolest developments is motion capture software like Jasper Brekelman’s Brekel that enables anyone to create their own mo-cap animations using the Kinect. Here is a preview of “Under the HUD” by Triangle Productions, an animated series using Brekel and Kinect’s motion capture capabilities. Although the choreography is not so impressive, they give great insight into how they are using the technology.

The sensors on the Kinect make it a powerful tool for intermedia performance. Amazing live interactive animations like those of Chunky Move’s “Mortal Engine” can be obtained using the Kinect for a tiny fraction of the cost and technological know how. Here is an example of an artful performance with live video projections using a Kinect developed by the media and design firm 1024 Architecture.

There have been many technological precedents to the Kinect, but for a much higher price tag. In the dance world this kind of technology was formerly only available to universities and world class dance companies with loads of funding. The prototype of Kinect’s camera and microphone alone cost $30,000! How can Microsoft charge only $150 for the same technology? Well the answer is in the popularity of the device, which has already sold 10 million units and counting.

The fact that this device is called Kinect and was designed to track the motion of the human body seems to be a dream come true for dance artists and movers. I can’t wait to see what artists and geeks will come up with next.

To learn more and see loads of videos about hacks for the Kinect go to: Kinecthacks.net

Good news!

We have extended the discounted early registration deadline for Zach Morris’s workshop, “Moving with Objects and Architecture: Choreography for the Camera and Site-Specific Dance”.

Information about the workshop and associated screening, as well as how to register is available on the Kinetic Cinema Page on the Pentacle Website, and below!

Kinetic Cinema @ Green Space

Workshop and Screening: Moving with Objects and Architecture
with Zach Morris

Choreography for the Camera Workshop

Tuesday May 3rd 7-10pm

In this workshop, multi-disciplinary artist Zach Morris will lead participants through a process of creating site-specific movement works for the camera. A grab-bag of choreographic tactics focus on working with the architecture of a site to pull images and meaning from its components. Techniques for researching a site and exploring its possibilities in movement; finding hidden meaning in a space and developing methods to amplify it; and issues of staging, storyboarding, and choreographing for the camera will be introduced through a series of focused exercises.
$35 if registered by May 1st / $40 at door
Register here

Film Screening: Moving with Objects and Architecture
Tuesday May 17th 8-10pm

Join us for an evening of Dance for Camera curated by Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects and The Dance Film Lab.  Films to be screened include Dirty Ho (Lan tou He); (Dir. Lau Kar-Leung, Contrecoup (Dir. Pascal Magnin), Rest in Peace (Chor. Hans Hof Ensemble; Dir. Annick Vroom), as well as footage from Casino Royale (Dir. Martin Campbell), Touch of Evil (Dir. Orson Wells) and Singing in the Rain (Dirs: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen).
$7 online / $10 at door
Reservations

Zach Morris is a Bessie Award-winning choreographer whose work includes site-specific performances, installation art, video and multi-media projects, and immersive performance environments.  He is particularly interested in creating projects that place contemporary art and performance in non-traditional contexts.

Zach’s work has been seen internationally, at several theaters around the U.S. and at numerous venues in New York City.  He is Co-Director of Third Rail Projects,  an NYC arts organization dedicated to bringing art to the public through an array of media; organizer and moderator of the NYC Dance Film Lab; creator of the annual Steampunk Haunted House in New York City; and serves as adjunct faculty for Florida State University.  Zach has a BFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Green Space, 37-24 24th St. Suite 301
Long Island City, NY 11101
Phone: 718-956-3037
Info@GreenSpaceStudio.org

I am juiced about Jacob’s Pillow’s innovative new Dance Interactive in which 70 years of archival footage from the festival is now available for viewing anywhere.

This ground-breaking video collection, just launched on March 28th, has been designed to draw users into the Jacob’s Pillow Archive and make it easy and fun to navigate through the site. One can start out looking at Kyle Abraham, and then a few clicks later be watching Shantala Shivalingappa and Anna Duncan from 1942. For a dance lover, this site could start to consume as much of your time as Facebook or Twitter.

From a technical point of view, the site is surprisingly sophisticated behind its clean and simple looking design. Users can access videos via four main pathways: Artist, Genre, Era, and Guess (a fun quiz that tests user’s dance literacy). Each video is only one minute long, which provides just enough time to make you want to see more (while keeping them within Fair Use Law and avoiding a lot of legal hassle). For now, there is no advanced search function where you can type in an artist’s name or key word and get results, but this will most likely be added when more content has been uploaded. For now, the site functions to give users a taste of the archives and encourage them to visit them in person on site if they want to really delve into the artist or the material.

Dance Interactive started as a physical kiosk on-site at Jacob’s Pillow for people to be able to peruse the archives without having to go in and bother an intern to get out the works. The original Dance Interactive was designed as a touch screen, and the site today has kept that tactile feeling so it translates well to the iPad and other tablet and mobile devices. As one can imagine, selecting a one minute clip from each artist would be difficult, and Norton Owen, Jacob’s Pillow Director of Preservation is responsible for selecting all of the excerpts and writing thoughtful text descriptions that help contextualize the content. Given the vastness of the task, for now the Virtual Pillow Team is aiming to upload a video a week as well as include all current and future programming as it happens at the Pillow.

The video content itself is beautifully shot and looks great on screen. Many of the clips are viewable in HD and can be projected for a classroom presentation without looking too pixelated. On the backend, the site was built on Drupal and designed by ClearMetrics, NYC. All the video is hosted by Vimeo, which gives it stability and flexibility for customizing the player and changing the files easily.

In an era when to exist at all means to exist online, Jacob’s Pillow’s Dance Interactive has breathed new life into dance history for audiences everywhere. Although this collection only represents dance that has passed through Jacob’s Pillow, I hope that it inspires many other dance institutions to dust off their vaults and open up their archives to become part of the living networked world.