Posts Tagged ‘chez bushwick’

We wanted to provide you with the program notes and videos that Boris Willis presented at Kinetic Cinema, on June 10th at Chez Buskwick.  Since his program was about dance vlogging, all the videos he showed are available online, which we have provided the links to. Coincidentally, Willis organized his videos along the theme of amateur/professional, fitting perfectly with our first Weekly Videodance Contest.

Reality Dancevision: An Intimate Screen Capture of Dance Vloggers- Program Notes and Videos

Curator’s Note:

Boris Willis by Paul Emerson

The dance vlogger it seems, is a rare person to find. It is relatively easy to find dance bloggers, dance writers and dance photographers but finding professional dancers/choreographers who use the web as a primary source for showing a dance is more difficult. We see the powerful influence of the web with the disappearance of newspapers and the emergence of e-book readers such as the Kindle, the emergence of iTunes Music Store as the world’s largest seller of music, as well as the question of whether DVD’s will soon be outpaced by movie downloads. Even in this digital age, people love dance, as evidenced by video sharing sites that are replete with videos of the latest social dances and sophisticated dance videos made by amateurs.. I think that just as reality television can take you into the lives of ordinary people, online dance can take you into the lives of dance makers. We can get an intimate look at the person, not just the performer, through online video. I can’t predict that the web will provide a revolution in theatrical dance. However, I do sense a shift by some artists who feel as I do that one does not have to wait for their two nights in the theater to share their work. For this program, I will present several works by amateur and professional dancers that reveal the artist as both a performer and a person in a way that illuminates the purpose of dance in our lives as well as acknowledge the value of web as a venue.

–Boris Willis
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By Dawn Paap

Given all the possibilities of dance on screen, choreographers for the camera have a multitude of ways to keep us astonished.  Fortunately, the creative interaction between film technique and dance are endless.  In the emerging field of Cinedance, filmmakers or video artists create works that use dance as raw material, and now, choreographic achievements are being made available to the video artist for artistic exploration.

At the last Kinetic Cinema screening on May 13th at Chez Bushwick, curator Victoria Murphy showed a video by Matt Tarr and Ami Ipapo entitled ‘Little Ease (Outside the Box)’ that was a screen adaptation of Elizabeth Streb’s iconic solo ‘Little Ease’. For the film version of the piece, Streb company member Ami Ipapo reconstructed the choreography off-stage in an urban landscape.  The choreography of the live piece on its own is powerful, but the film was able to capture more action and intensity in the piece. I felt more connected to the dancer by being able to hear her breathing, and see her minute facial expressions as she powerfully pushes through the movements. The film took me “inside the box” with the dancer, and I forgot that I was a voyeur watching a choreographed work, something that rarely happens when watching a live performance. My favorite element of this Cinedance was the artistry in editing together of the shots of choreography, which to me added a new specific cinematic “pulse” to Streb’s dance.

Fortunately, other dance icons are lending their choreographed works to video artists to create cinedances. For instance the Martha Graham Company recently released videos of several dances from Martha Graham’s Clytemnestra to be remashed and reedited by contestants in their Clytemnestra Remash Challenge. The contestants displayed a huge range of styles and approaches to remashing the choreographic material, and all of the contest entries are available for view on the Clytemenestra Remash Challenge website at http://clytemnestraproject.com.

I am a personal fan of taking choreographed works made for the stage out into the world to be performed, so I was very pleased to see so many  video artists take Martha Graham’s choreography and characters into new environments off stage.  To me, it made the characters more appealing and more passionate. As a result, I found myself enjoying and connecting with Graham’s work on another level.   The following submission was my personal favorite in the Remash Contest.

The winners of the Remash Contest for Martha Graham’s Clytemnestra have been announced.  Check out their videos and look at some of the other contestants as well. Voting is still open for the popular choice awards! Regardless of the winners, I am thrilled to see new film-makers responding to choreography and furthering the development of cinedance.

People all over the globe are now able to share and collaborate on artistic works over the Internet. Dance innovators would be wise to tap into these new possibilities and use today’s networked media technologies to make the works of dance masters more accessible. In so doing, like Martha Graham and Elizabeth Streb, they would ensure the cultural significance of their work over time, while also enabling to new works of art to be made and contributing to new developments in cinedance.

(re)Action by Victoria Murphy

Next week, on May 13th at Kinetic Cinema, Victoria Murphy will present a provocative talk and screening in which she proposes a way to define and think about what cinedance is and is not.

“Videodance” “Screendance” “Dance for the Camera” “Cinedance”… These terms have been used interchangeably when referring to things that emerge at the crossroads of dance and media, including everything from concert dance that is videotaped, edited and shown to an audience; to films about famous dance companies, choreographers and dancers; to videos made by creating movement for the camera, then edited to create visual poetry and films that are choreographic in their structure, though the images do not include people that could remotely be construed as dancing.

Does it matter that these and other forms melding dance and media are clumped together under several terms used interchangeably? Is this an emerging art form? If so, what are the hallmarks of the form? What makes one thing a cinedance, another a documentary, another cultural anthropology, and another a form of experimental media which we have yet to name?

Featuring the work of: Matt Tarr and ami ipapo; Douglas Rosenberg and Allen Kaeja; and Victoria Murphy; among others.

Victoria Murphy is a cinedancemaker, dancer, media artist and actress. She is a member of The Living Theatre and has performed with jill sigman/thinkdance, the Alchemical Theatre, the Measured Breath Theatre Company, and is working with Cynthia Berkshire on a dance in development. Victoria is currently working on her second cinedance, (re)Action. She studied media production and computer animation at The New School, and has worked on feature and commercial film sets. Her day-job activities include tutoring dancers in Final Cut Pro.

KINETIC CINEMA

Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11
Brooklyn, NY 11206
718.418.4405
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Kinetic Cinema is a co-presentation of Chez Bushwick and Pentacle’s Movement Media project, and happens on the second Wednesday of each month as part of a weekly dance, visual & media arts series at Chez Bushwick.

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Just in time for the new baseball season, at the next Kinetic Cinema on April 8th choreographer, performer and videographer, Lisa Niedermeyer will present an evening of screen dance through the lens of professional sports. Alongside special guest, sports videographer Ray Wenzel Jr., Niedermeyer will present and discuss dance films that feature heightened Speed, Kinetic Response, Spectacle, Competition and Endurance. Featuring the work of dance film-makers: Charles Dennis, Alan McIntyre Smith, Lemeh42, Miriam King, Kristi Faulkner and Sylvain White.

Coming up next at Kinetic Cinema:

P.O.V: PRO SPORTS

Curated by Lisa Niedermeyer

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 7:00pm

Tickets: $10 (purchase at the door)

*A co-presentation of Chez Bushwick and Pentacle’s Movement Media

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Still of Kristin Sloan, creator of NYC Ballet's "Tragic Love" web series

At the next Artist Salon on March 25th at Chez Bushwick, Jaki Levy, founder of Arrow Root Media and new media producer for Misnomer Dance, Martha Graham Dance Co. and others, will be looking at dance work created specifically for the web. Dance on Camera has already established itself as a viable medium for showcasing dance + performance. However, there is a growing trend of artists creating and adapting work specifically for the web. For example, New York City Ballet’s Tragic Love series, or more recently, Cedar Lake’s  Project 52 – all videos made specifically for the web.

Like site specific work, these (web)site specific pieces are showing that these new constraints are creating short format work, with new possibilities for distribution, creativity, and collaboration.

You are invited bring in your own examples of web-based videos to show at the Salon. If interested, please contact Jaki at http://www.google.com/search?q=jaki+levy

The Artist Salon series happens on the fourth Wednesdays of the month at Chez Bushwick and features dialogue across disciplines around various artist-chosen topics. Anyone can bring questions, stories, artifacts, or material to add to the conversation.

ARTIST SALON

“Dance for Web” moderated by Jaki Levy

Wed. March 25, 2009 @ 7pm $5