Posts Tagged ‘intermedia performance’
10 Dance and Movement Animations
Movement Media is delighted to have Doug Fox as a guest blogger for this week’s posting. Back in February 2009, Doug presented several movement-based animations as a guest curator for Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema program. Click here to read our blog posting featuring Doug’s Animation program at the screening.
Doug Fox’s Picks for Dance and Movement Animations
One of the captivating elements of dance and animation is the diverse range of forms it can take. Among the animation techniques that can be employed to represent the body in motion, whether in a more concrete or abstract manner, include:
- 2D
- 3D
- Stop motion
- Live-action and animation hybrids
- Real-time animated graphics using motion tracking
- Visualization overlays
- Special effects
- ASCII-based animations
- Digital puppetry
- Cut-out animation
- Motion-capture based
- 2D/3D lasers
- Rotoscoped
- Virtual worlds
- Pre-cinema era animations
For Doug’s round-up of some of his favorite dance and movement animations he made selections of each of these different types of animations. A few videos chosen by Doug couldn’t be embedded onto our blog for your viewing convenience, but we encourage you to take a minute to check out these great videos, to learn about the many types of dance and movement-based animated videos artists are creating. Enjoy!
Rotoscoped Tango dance scene from “Waking Life”:
Gabrielle Lamb’s “Quizas” mixes 2D animation and live-action footage:
“En Tus Brazos” is a narrative-based 3D animation about a tragic accident that besets a famous Argentinean Tango dancer:
Also enjoy an ASCII-based animation “TextField” by Chirstinn Whyte and Jake Messenger:
http://www.jakemessenger.plus.com/textfield-h264.mov
The Converse music video “My Drive-Thru” is based on the cut-out animation technique:
Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance” is a stop-motion music video compiled from thousands of photographs:
The “Prodigy Warrior’s Dance” combines stop-motion animation and puppetry:
The Recoil Performance Group’s “Body Navigation” uses motion tracking and projectors to general real-time, interactive graphics in a performance environment:
http://www.vimeo.com/1362832“Trash Dance” features 3D animation and motion capture:
Lastly, Doug offers us “Anima Istanbul”, which re-creates the feeling of the pre-cinema era zoetrope effect:
http://motionographer.com/theater/if-2009-zoetrope/
Movement Media appreciates Doug sharing some of his favorite animated videodances with our readers. As you can see, artists are making some extraordinary animations, and there will certainly be more exciting works in the future, as more artists are combine animation with dance and movement.
Doug Fox is the founder of Great Dance, one of the first dance blogs. His blog and speaking programs have primarily addressed how dance-makers can embrace the Internet and digital tools to enhance their marketing and promotional efforts. He is an active member of the dance community and serves on the Dance/NYC Advisory Board.
Doug began to study and research all forms of animation, especially as they relate to dance and movement. This research led to the creation of his dance animation educational program, which he was delighted to introduce at Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema. Doug is continuing to expand this screening program and workshop and it will be shown on August 16th at the Hong Kong Science Museum presented by the City Contemporary Dance Company.
Doug can be reached at doug@greatdance.com and through his Great Dance website: http://greatdance.com. You can also follow his Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/dougfox.
Dance Tributes Around the World for the Dance Legend, Michael Jackson
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.
A.O.'s Production Blog: the project starts

I’m back, and ready to dive in with you and bring you up to date on this new project/piece/film/thing that i’ve been working on. To give you a little context about the piece as a greater whole:
I’ve been working with my company, the A.O. Movement Collective, since the beginning of September on a new piece. Through Dance Theater Workshop’s Van Lier Fellowship, i was awarded 100 hours of free rehearsal space at Topaz Arts in Queens (an awesome studio, if i may say so) which we’re just finishing up this month. We’ve been through a lot already – cast additions and subtractions (and additions and subtractions), improvising, brainstorming, making, editing, throwing out, remaking, renewing – the works. The piece in itself (and i’m going to talk about it broadly here, but you can find more on my blog) is comprised of many small sections (“spots of time”) that will eventually all be connected by a non-linear narrative. Rather than working on a section at a time (which, we see very clearly now, would have been much easier to schedule and more economically viable) we’re making all of them at once, inch by inch and layer by layer. Working on them in this way means that they all continue to inform the others and continue to grow. I’ll be talking more about that process, and other Epic Work at my program at Chez Bushwick this Wed. night at 7 (come!!!) but that’s clear enough for now. All of this is to say: there are many sections (“13 variations on a car crash”, “Muerte Chiquita“, “fat fingers”, “Rock Solo”, “Slow lift evolving”, “eyes closed”, “gun to face”, etc) and this one is called “Glass Tree in Harlem”.
Well it's lovely to meet you too. (Sarah A.O. joins Move the Frame)
Hello there!
I’m Sarah A.O. – Anna has been kind enough to invite me to blog on Move the Frame on a regular basis. So, yes, i’m thrilled to be here! I guess you could say i’m a dance blogger. You could also say that i’m a choreographer, and dancefilm-maker, as well as newmedia lover/developer. You could also say that I am a lumberjack, but you, my friend, would be wrong on that last one. My company, the A.O. Movement Collective, is a contemporary dance co. based in NY, in love with and dabbling in many things: the aesthetics of mess, epic work, new media programs, and dancefilm being some of them. My blog, the Urgent Artist, is a digital space for some of those ideas and questions, as well as a space for anyone who “lives by their art” to throw down some good old fashioned knowledge, questions, or heartaches. I also work as a producer/editor for reels4artists, a video production company for the arts, and as an artist services intern at Dance Theater Workshop. But enough about all that.
Since Anna approached me about writing for her blog, i’ve been thinking about how to structure my time and space here. Do i blog theory, or about performances and screenings, or maybe turn my attention to the economics of dancefilm versus performance? I find them all vast and interesting, but luckily there’s a fairly easy answer already in place.
Artist Salon at Chez Bushwick Jan 28th: Video and Performance
This Wednesday I will be co-hosting the first Artist Salon at Chez Bushwick with choreographer and media artist Jonah Bokaer about the influence of video art on live performance. Starting with Nam June Paik’s first known video, made in 1965 the day he bought the first Sony Portapak, from there we’ll focus on how performance artists have used video ever since. We’ll watch interview footage with the Wooster Group about their use of television and media content in their theatrical works, as well as interviews with Cathy Weis on her dance video processes.
Finally, we’d like to invite you, the audience to bring in work of your own that relates to video and live performance. What performance work is being done today that is in dialogue with new media? Can we distinguish the mediatized from the live anymore? What directions do you see inter-media performance heading in?
To share work, please email us a brief description of what you’d like to show, the total running time (no more than 10 min) and the format for screening. We can show DVD’s, minidv, or quicktime files.
ARTIST SALON
with Jonah Bokaer choreographer and media artist & Anna Brady Nuse choreographer and dance film-maker
Wednesday Jan 28th 7:00-9:00pm $5
Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11
Brooklyn, NY 11206
Trains: L to Morgan Street, exit back of the train. Turn LEFT outside the station. Turn LEFT onto Boerum Street


