Posts Tagged ‘dance’

by Nicholas Bruder

Pina Bausch was one of those living legends. Her work has been seen by many. Her influence is felt throughout the dance world, and her memory will live in the history books, although she had already infiltrated them.

Her choreography reached a wider audience when snippets of Cafe Muller was shown in Pedro Almodovar’s film Talk to Her. Bausch’s work had a raw and timeless cloud around it. Her pieces were about “things,” not just one “something.” Metaphor was huge. The relationships between men and women always being dissected and presented to an audience that never knew what exactly they were going to see when she premiered a new work.

And the scale of the pieces were unthinkable. Snow falling on stage for a whole second half of a show. A mound of dirt blocking half of the stage. Flowers, chairs, walls, screams, sweat, tears, bruises. All real. Although the visuals were impressive, I do not believe they were ever used to impress upon. I feel that her work was honest and humble. It was ugly and beautiful. If one opened themselves up to the experience of the dancers, they would leave exhausted, but not abused. Bausch was true to her vision and dancers. The audience had to take the role of accepting that and to enjoy the ride, no matter how uncomfortable it might get. The pieces always ended beautifully.

Her pieces were made to be seen in grand, large theaters, but the attention that she asked for, and got, from the audience, was that of an intoxicating program on television.

Her work, I feel, was living cinematogrophy. There are many clips of her work around the Internet that can be found and enjoyed. But the greatest news is Bausch’s collaboration with famous film director, Wim Wellers Wenders. Before she passed, they announced plans to create and film a retrospective documentary on Bausch, and in 3-D. Wenders had cancelled the production after her death, but through public opinion and the amount of letters he received from lovers of Bausch’s work, he will be continuing on with the project.

A 3-D film on the life and work of Pina Bausch. This might be one of the best gifts that the dance world will receive. And in 3-D!! It might seem cheesy, but personally I have only had the privilege to see one Bausch piece live, and I am welcoming the opportunity to see another, in a way, Bausch original.

by Dawn Paap

The world is responding to dance more than ever, as individuals from across the globe share their love of dance publicly and through video arts.

We are finding more and more people documenting their celebrations of dance icons through dance and video, and their dances continue to resonate with Internet viewers looking to connect artistically, locally, and universally to create MORE dance.

This new social movement through dance is liberating and profound.  World records are being broken as more and more people come together to dance for a common goal–the celebration of dance.  The growing numbers speak volumes, and as we continue to learn from dance, we will continue to grow to our full potential as artists and communities.  At the end of this posting you can learn how to get involved in this new social movement and dance phenomenon and help Thrill The World by dancing with the WORLD to Michael Jackson!

Dance legends have impacted me greatly, as I see them teaching us how to connect with ourselves, others, and the world.   This week we pay tribute to Michael Jackson who continues to affect the world as seen through the arts.  Dancers and media artists have been making documented tributes to his legacy.

Michael Jackson-the King of Pop

Michael Jackson is remembered fondly for his impact on dance.  Out of the hundreds of videodances recently created to celebrate the beloved Michael Jackson, these are some of my favorites.

As a dancer, this next videodance speaks to Michael Jackson, the man who made me want to dance freestyle and hip hop every day.

Video artists have also done their part to pay tribute to Michael, as seen in this adorable video to the song ”Don’t stop til you get enough“…

Michael Jackson dance tributes continue to hit the street, as seen in this videodance tribute to Beat It done in Stockholm.

In addition to these popular songs and dance moves, there are continuous dance tributes to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  Never before has there been more ZOMBIE walks and events, as demonstrated by the zombie networking website http://www.ThrillTheWorld.com.  ‘Thrill The World’ has organized 72 dance tribute events, breaking a world record last year with 4,179 dancers participating from 10 different nations.  They are hoping to reach their goal of 270,00 people to dance to Thriller in 2009 and pay tribute to Jackson’s life and dance. Thrill 2009 looks to be a big year for zombies doing the crawl of the dead!

This videodance tribute from 2008 showcases the individuals who came  together as dancing zombies to celebrate Michael Jackson’s influence on the world.

Anyone can learn the dance moves to Thriller, and participate in Thrill The World 2009.  There are various videos available online, such as this one.

In addition to thousands of people who are learning dance moves from online video, more and more people are learning Michael Jackson’s dance moves in dance studios around the world.  Leaders in the Hip Hop genre are doing their part to perform and teach Michael Jackson’s moves to current and future generations of dancers.  The following videodance tribute features Hip Hop Masters Lil’ Mama, Taeko, Feng, and The Beat Freaks.

The King of Pop was one inspirational gentleman, and will be remembered on a global scale…as evidenced by the videodances shared in this posting and the hundreds available on the Internet.  I look forward to continued celebrations of Michael Jackson through dance…so whenever you can, by yourself, with a partner, or with a group–get out there and dance!

Tune in next week for more posts in tribute to Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham.

(“Maybe we all dream to be………?” by T.A.G.San Francisco, shown at the March 25th Artist Salon with Jaki Levy)

At the last Artist Salon on March 25th at Chez Bushwick, Jaki Levy, a media artist and new media consultant, discussed dance work created specifically for the web. The question of the evening was: Why should artists make dance films specifically for the web? In short, making dance videos for the web is convenient, inexpensive, and relatively easy to do.  For dance works in progress, posting videos on the web allows artists to conduct “audience test screenings”  and get feedback.  Web videos also offer artists the ability to communicate and mix media in different ways.

Jaki Levy compiled a few videos that gave us a peek into the present + future of dance, art, and technology on the web.  Some of the work was completely choreographed, others were more improvisational.  Jaki shared how videos are created for different purposes, and gave examples of what a digital performance world looks like, including live web casts, web series, and site specific performances.

For example, Tendu.TV is looking for a mass market for dance by offering high quality broadband content of dance concerts and dance for camera works. Jaki showed an example of a show produced for Tendu.TV by Marlon Barrios-Solano entitled “Dance-tech Ep. 1“. In this episode Marlon interviewed various international choreographers talking about their work and intercut the footage with excerpts from their New York performance seasons.

Troika Ranch was exploring a process of editing for their up-coming multi-media show, “Loop Diver”and shared it with their MySpace friends.  This process is called “Algorithmic editing” and it assaults the senses. In this experiment (a collaboration between Troika Ranch and Street Pictures), a simple phrase of movement is fractured into thousands of shots in various locations all over Brooklyn, New York.

3rd Rail Projects & Julie Fotheringham both used web video  to share their site specific performances with wider audiences. 3rd Rail Projects fully integrated  web activities into their recent month long performance series at the World Financial Center by posting videos online and writing about each day’s performance on their blog. In this way, the work had both an online life and a physical life that co-existed and supported each other.

Julia Fotheringham makes guerilla-style dances that interrupt normal routines and cause people to stop and observe. The video is both a document and a voyeuristic view of the performer’s journey through the city.

“A Facet of the Real” explored how performance in “first” life and Second Life can intersect, creating a trippy situation in which a live performance is viewed in real time by online avatars in a virtual venue.

Some artists make web videos for artistic purposes, others for marketing purposes, and some have both in mind.  The intention of web videos can be to develop audiences by hooking viewers online and enticing them to come to live shows or screenings, or to simply to post a personal video diary from the studio. The web space allows for both anonymous and public modalities and is as broad and rich as the physical world. What is exciting is how dance artists are starting to embrace the web for all its potential. It feels increasingly apparent that we are all media-makers now.

To see all the clips from the screening and read more commentary go to Jaki’s blog post at: http://www.arrowrootmedia.com

by Dawn Paap and Anna Brady Nuse

Choreographic Captures screenshot

Joint Adventures, a German dance and theatre production company has launched an ambitious project called Choreographic Captures to distribute short dance films to German movie houses. To start out, they had an international competition for one minute films. The five winners were just announced and will be played in dozens of cinemas this fall during the ads and movie previews that proceed the feature films.

The motto of the project is “art for those who didn’t ask for it.” This connotes a wonderful guerilla-marketing approach to delivering dance to main stream audiences. Short and snappy, the one minute duration is perfect for web-viewing, and just long enough to give someone a taste for the potency of dance on film. In 2009 they want to expand the reach of the program to international partners. Let’s lobby cinemas State-side to play dance films here!

Check out the winners and all the entrants’ films on the Choreographic Captures website. Forms and information to become a screening partner in 2009 are also available there.

Join us for the final dance film screening event of the season!

Still from Fünf ‘n’ Twist

On Monday December 1st at 7:30 pm, Kinetic Cinema will feature new and old works on American culture and life in war-times. The first half of the program will feature sisters Kerrie Welsh (video artist) and Sasha Welsh (choreographer) who will show a live performance of an in-progress excerpt from their current collaboration, Trace Decay, as well as films and videos by historically important female figures that have influenced their thinking about gender, media, violence and the aesthetics of war.

The second half of the program will be a selection of films that have influenced film-maker Anna Brady Nuse and composer J Why in the making of their latest videodance collaboration, Fünf ‘n’ Twist. Drawing from classic images of American adolescence in the 20th Century, Fünf ‘n’ Twist is a satirical teenage odyssey that takes place at the prom and grapples with issues of freedom and authority. In addition to showing a rough cut of the work, the artists will discuss the how their project came about with marketing executive Calvin Wilson.

Trace Decay

Kinetic Cinema

Monday Dec 1st, 7:30pm
$10 Admission
Reservations: 212.254.5277

Interborough Repertory Theater (IRT)
154 Christopher Street, Suite 3B (btw Greenwich & Washington Streets)
New York, NY 10014
Trains: 1, PATH to Christopher Street

Kinetic Cinema explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month Anna Brady Nuse invites a special guest from the dance community to share the films and videos that have inspired or moved them. These could be films that feature dance, are kinetic-based,or have
been influential on their work in some way. The guest curators come from a range of backgrounds as performers, choreographers,critics, and filmmakers. Stay tuned for more info on our new season at Chez Bushwick starting January 14th, 2009!

Kinetic Cinema is a co-presentation of Collective:Unconscious and Pentacle Movement Media, and is part of The Collective for Loving Cinema Series, a weekly themed-film series presented by Collective:Unconscious. The Collective for Loving Cinema Series is supported, in part, by the New York
State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. This presentation of Fünf ‘n’ Twist is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administrated by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Movement Media is a new project of Pentacle, offering screenings, services, and online interactive publications about dance for screen. For more info and to get up-to-date news and event information go to www.pentacle.org or Move the Frame blog: www.movetheframe.com.

photos from top: Fünf ‘n’ Twist by Anna Brady Nuse; Trace Decay photo: Steven Screiber, performers: Cynthia St. Clair and Cindy Chung Camins