Here’s another well-loved favorite. You may have seen it already, but perhaps this week we can watch it with specific attention towards the ways that Forsythe works with lines and texture.

Feet rubbing on the floor, violin bow rubbing against strings, muscle rubbing against bone—etching, cutting, weaving, and shaping himself and the space around him. Moving quickly from one thing to the next, we remain with the ghosts of himself that he leaves behind.

Continuing with the theme of dance, geometry, and line drawing, here is a video of a performance by Tony Orrico, formerly of Shen Wei Dance Arts. You might remember him from his recent performance with John Jasperse, in which he covered the stage and lobby of Brooklyn Academy of Music with lines of tape (all while crouching down in a small white box on wheels).

This piece, Penwald 2: 8 Circles is created in 1,000 movements and measured by the length of Orrico’s body. Enjoy.

En Dedans, Gabrielle Lamb

New Yorkers and dance film-lovers from around the world look forward to the Dance On Camera Festival each year. For the past 40 years, this annual festival has been the central anchor and source for new dance on film. The 40^th edition of the Dance On Camera Festival will take place from January 27-31 at the Walter Reade Theater as well as the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center.

While we at Move the Frame tend to focus primarily on dance made for the screen, the festival’s programmers have always made an effort to encompass the vast range of styles and genre’s that make up dance film. “We try to reach far and wide to find films that connect dance and camera in ways that will surprise and inspire viewers to deepen their interest in both mediums,” says Joanna Ney, co-curator of the festival. “This year’s selection offers a diversity of subject, style and genre aimed at the traditionalist as well as the iconoclast.”

Dance enthusiasts will find many documentaries about dance luminaries such as Natalia Makarova and Robert Wilson, historic dance presenters and companies such as Jacob’s Pillow, the Joffrey Ballet, and Pilobolus, and innovative choreographer Wayne McGregor. Film enthusiasts will enjoy innovative shorts by inspired directors such as Clara Van Gool, Pontus Lidberg, and New York’s own Jody Oberfelder.

In another post we’ll share with you our personal picks for the festival, but for now, go to DFA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s websites to see the full lineup, as well as schedule and ticket information.

FRAMEWORKS accepts submissions of original works of choreography for the camera, less than 20 minutes in length and made within the last 7 years. Videos of staged work and documentary films are fabulous but won’t be reviewed in this series. On average, 30-75 films are submitted for each screening, and 4-7 are selected. Submission is and always will be free.

Deadline for the Winter 2012 Series is January 31st. Please note this is the received by deadline.

For more information and application forms go to: http://www.frameworksdance.org/

Hello Webdancers!

This week’s video is the first in a month-long series that features videos that engage with drawing and geometry. How do we create and mark the space around us with movement? As movers, it would seem that we are always making these lines, as those who watch us can remember for an instant where we have just come from.

We’ll begin with a well-known and well-loved piece by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker that was featured last winter at the MoMA. Enjoy!

“When you work with geometry and with geometrical patterns, what you actually do is like measuring the earth. It becomes very much about relationships of the amount of space you occupy in a certain amount of time.”

When we look through the viewfinder of a camera, we are given the task of measuring space in a different way, and of defining the relationships of the figures in focus through these measurements. The videos in this series may not all involve sophisticated camera work, but I hope they will help us to think about natural geometries in our bodies, new modes of composition, and ways in which different types of artistic production can converse with each other.