Posts Tagged ‘experimentalism’

Club Midnight: Spirit into Flesh

Amy Greenfield is an award-winning film-maker and cinedance pioneer. In her latest project, CLUB MIDNIGHT: FLESH INTO LIGHT she combines her films about erotic dancers with Leonard Nimoy’s  photography about the divine female presence and re-imagines it all for the stage with a cast of live dancers (featuring Andrea Beeman as the Enchantress of Bioluminosity, Bessie Award-winning dancer Tasha Taylor & Vittoria Maniglio). The result is a true multi-media feast for the senses.

If that isn’t enough to intrigue you, the music features John Zorn’s Masada, words are spoken by Emmy Award-winning actress, Maeve Kinkead, and Lyda Borelli is seen in a 1917 Italian Diva film.

I’m particularly excited to see how Amy, a master of the film image, is able to work with live dance and combine theatricality with the screen. The show has been specially designed for the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at Symphony Space, which is intimate and cabaret-ish, but also allows her to project real 35mm film on a full screen. It’s rare to see a work of such  uncompromised vision. After my disappointment last year in Isaac Julien’s “Cast No Shadow” with Russell Maliphant at BAM, I’m hoping that Greenfield’s “Club Midnight: Flesh Into Light” will have a strong choreographic presence and the dancers will not be completely consumed by the seductive screens.

Still from Club Midnight

CLUB MIDNIGHT: FLESH INTO LIGHT
January 30 and 31, 7:30 and 9:30 Nightly
Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th Street, NYC

Reservations: 212-864-5400 or www.symphonyspace.org

More info: www.clubmidnight.net
www.cinemabody.wordpress.com

I’ve written quite a few posts on this blog about the United State’s one and only major supporter of videodance, EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY.

After two years of construction, on October 3rd EMPAC officially opened the doors of their new magnificent state-of-the-art media and performing arts center, and celebrated with two weekends of non-stop performances, screenings, installations and special events. I was lucky enough to be able spend the day on Saturday Oct 4th, seeing this amazing facility for myself. I traveled with a fellow dance filmmaker, Sabine Klaus (aka CreationEditor on dance-tech.net) who was visiting from Scotland. We took in the sights and Sabine recorded much of what she saw on video to create the 25 min vlog post below. Many thanks to Sabine for letting me share it with you here.

The building is a work of art in itself. Designed by the London-based architecture firm, Grimshaw, it is built into the side of a hill overlooking downtown Troy with views of Albany beyond. With its modern glass and steel exterior, and curvey wood interior it looks like both a starship landing dock, and a giant pickle barrel. It was a bit confusing to find one’s way around the multitude of theaters, studios and galleries, but by the end of the day I’d gotten my bearings.

In 2007, with the support of a $1 million gift from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts, EMPAC launched the DANCE MOViES Commission which supports the creation of several new experimental dance films by artists from the Americas each year. The premiere screening of the first DANCE MOViES Commission films took place in the huge Concert Hall space on a gigantic screen. I don’t know enough to speak about the great acoustical and technical attributes of this space, but it was awesome to see dance films blown up so big with so much visual and sonic impact!

I thought the pieces that showed off the capabilities of the building the best, however were the interactive installations. The Wooster group made a 360 degree video installation that was supposed to be about life in wartime, but it made a more powerful statement about control and editing, as one viewer in the space, sitting in the “chosen” chair, was able to direct the gaze of the group by swiveling around. Wherever this one person looked, that was the part of the video that was in focus and audible. The piece was masterfully designed to look slipshod and casual, but underneath it was very manipulative, making you feel both in and out of control over the action. I’d love to see more pieces like this, but besides major art museums and institutions like EMPAC, it would be hard to find a place with the technical capabilities to mount it. Another great installation was Billie Cowie’s 3-D “In the Flesh” in which viewers don the red and blue glasses to watch a dancer lift herself off of a zebra print rug. Like a ghost being conjured at a séance, it felt creepy to see her delicate hand reaching up to me, almost touching, and then fading away.

All in all, EMPAC is an amazing place for experimental artists, but after visiting I had a few questions about what its real world impact will be. Here in New York City, spaces to make and show experimental dance and media are more scarce than ever. Perhaps Troy and Albany will become a new destination for artists seeking cheap and plentiful real estate with adequate cultural and community benefits to support them, but even in up-state New York, the great disparity between rich and poor is quite striking. EMPAC is really designed for world class artists who already have the capabilities, funding, and expertise to take advantage of the unsurpassed technological resources this facility can provide. This makes sense given their situation at one of the world’s most prestigious technical/engineering institutions.

Even in the arts, it seems the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I would just like an empty room with lights and heat to rehearse in, and perhaps a new video camera that can record high quality footage. I’d like to be able to pay my dancers and crew adequate compensation for their time and talents, and I’d like to not have to work three jobs in order to practice my art. There is a big gulf between the gutter most of us live in and the glimmering edifice of EMPAC. We need to create a bridge to be able to reach these glorious technological dreamlands of the future. This means radically rethinking how we build support, create community, and raise the value of our work. EMPAC makes experimental art look valuable and appealing to the wider world, but its up to us artists to raise the quality of our work to match those expectations. This takes many carefully measured steps to cultivate  donor networks, major funders, and presenters whose support will be necessary to reach that glittering gem on the top of the hill.

Two renown experimental filmmakers, Kenneth Anger and Amy Greenfield, are being featured at Anthology Film Archives in New York this weekend. The event, called “Cinema Dance Eros” will will be comprised of two programs of shorts that examine the erotic and sensual movement themes in both filmmakers’ work.

CLUB MIDNIGHT by Amy Greenfield
Amy Greenfield is a pioneer of cinedance and videodance, and for the past decade has embarked on a series of shorts about exotic dancers and strippers that were recently compiled in collection called CLUB MIDNIGHT. In these sensual films, the female subjects are the embodiment of ancient female archetypes. Under Greenfield’s treatment, female strippers become goddesses reincarnate, who carry out rituals of mythological proportions. In DARK SEQUINS dancer Andrea Beaman becomes Salome, performing the dance of the seven veils for a single man in an empty theater. In WILD FIRE four women whirl like the elements, whipping up energy into a hot frenzy.


Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome by Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger’s work is not usually associated with dance, but nevertheless, his wordless films are highly attenuated to movement. According to the curators of “Cinema Dance Eros”, Anger trained as a dancer in his youth, and one of his unfinished projects was a film of a Jean Cocteau ballet (Oh, if only we could see that!). The programs this weekend will feature some of his most famous works including FIREWORKS (which first garnered him attention from Jean Cocteau) and INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME.

These two programs are sure to fan the flames of any lover of mythology, magic, and eroticism! Don’t miss it!

Here are the details:

CINEMA DANCE EROS
Featuring filmmakers Kenneth Anger & Amy Greenfield

June 20th & 21st
Amy Greenfield in person!

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES

32 SECOND AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10003
phone (212) 505-5181 fax
(212) 477-2714

PROGRAM 1:
Amy Greenfield DANCING IN FRONT OF THE DARK
(1980/1992, 4 minutes, video)
Amy Greenfield DIRT (1971, 3 minutes,
16mm)
Amy Greenfield ELEMENT (1973, 11 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger
FIREWORKS (1947, 15 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger MY SURFING LUCIFER (2007,
4.5 minutes, video)
Amy Greenfield TIDES (1982, 12 minutes, 16mm.
Photographed by Hilary Harris.)
Kenneth Anger EAUX D’ARTIFICE (1953, 13
minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger RABBIT’S MOON (1950/1971, 16 minutes,
16mm)
Kenneth Anger PUCE MOMENT (1949, 6 minutes, 16mm. With Yvonne
Marquis.)
Amy Greenfield CLUB MIDNIGHT (2006, 8.5 minutes, 35mm. With Bonnie
Dunn & Andrea Beeman. Poetry by Charles Simic, spoken by Dennis
Hopper.)
Total running time: ca. 100 minutes.
-Friday and Saturday,
June 20 & 21 at 7:00.

PROGRAM 2:
Kenneth Anger
PUCE MOMENT (1949, 6 minutes, 16mm. With Yvonne Marquis.)
Amy Greenfield DARK
SEQUINS (2005, 13 minutes, 35mm. With Andrea Beeman.)
Amy Greenfield LIGHT OF
THE BODY (2004, 11 minutes, 35mm/video. With Francine Breen. Music by Marilys
Ernst.)
Amy Greenfield WILDFIRE (2003, 12 minutes, 35mm. With Andrea Beeman,
Francine Breen, Bonnie Dunn, Cynthia DeMoss. Music by Philip Glass.)
Kenneth
Anger INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER (1969, 11 minutes, 16mm. With Kenneth
Anger. Music by Mick Jagger.)
Kenneth Anger INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME
(1954, 38 minutes, 16mm. With Samson DeBreer, Cameron, Curtis Harrington, Anaïs
Nin, and Kenneth Anger.)
Total running time: ca. 95 minutes.
-Friday
and Saturday, June 20 & 21 at 9:30. 

Chez Bushwick in Brooklyn is screening three films by Yvonne Rainer over three weeks this month. Unfortunately I’m late in announcing this, and the first one, Lives of Performers took place last Wednesday, June 4th. There is still time to catch Murder and Murder, this Wednesday, June 11th, and Privilege next Wednesday, June 18th.

Yvonne Rainer was a member of Judson Dance Theater in the 1960’s, and is renown for her experimental innovations in dance, performance, and film. Here are two well-informed descriptions of her films being screened from Erin Brannigan’s essay on Rainer in sensesofcinema.com.

“MURDER and murder” (1996, winner of the Teddy Award,
Berlin Film Festival, 1997 and the Special Jury Award, Miami Lesbian and
Gay Film Festival, 1999), was made after Rainer’s characteristically public
and publicly self-analysed ‘coming out’ as a lesbian in 1991. (33)
The film also corresponds with Rainer’s breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy.
MURDER and murder is considered Rainer’s fullest commitment to fictional
characterisation, being her first film to actually play out a relationship
between two characters on screen with dialogues replacing monologues.

…“Privilege” (winner of the Dramatic Filmmaker’s Trophy,
Sundance Film Festival, Utah, 1991 and the Geyer Werke Prize at the International
Documentary Film Festival, Munich, 1991), [is] a film that has a black-on-white
act of violence at its centre. As in many of Rainer’s films, she couples
her central idea with another unrelated but complementary one; in this case
menopause and female aging. Racial and economic issues gave Rainer a new
focus that emerged from the critique of feminism’s white middle-class profile.

Screening info:

Murder and Murder
By Yvonne Rainer
Wednesday, June 11th
7:30pm
$5
 
Privilege
By Yvonne Rainer
Wednesday, June 18th
7:30pm
$5
 

All  screenings will take place at:
 
Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11 (At White)
Brooklyn, NY 11206
718.418.4405
info@chezbushwick.net

There is a well-spring of videodance activity bubbling up in New York City recently. It seems like every day I see or hear of a new artist or event happening. In the next few posts I’ll give a run down of the latest news, and will share more in the coming weeks.

NYC Dance Artists in Kinetic Cinema
First, a report of the Kinetic Cinema screening that happened on May 5th, curated by Levi Gonzalez. This screening was eye-opening for me, because I didn’t realize there were so many choreographers in my midst that are working in video so extensively now. The evening included videos by Sarah White, Melanie Maar, Theo Angell, Yasuko Yokoshi, Hedia Maron, and ChameckiLerner.

Read the rest of this entry »