Posts Tagged ‘kinodance’
Recent viewings of highly effective intermedia performances
This weekend I was involved in a couple of showcase events for the APAP conference (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) here in New York. Every year presenters and performing artists from the U.S. and around the globe converge at the Hilton in midtown Manhattan to pitch and book performance engagements. It’s exciting and completely overwhelming. Every square inch of dance space in the city is used to showcase dance companies in the hopes of catching a presenter’s eye. My APAP involvement centers around my workplace, Pentacle, which is an arts service organization that among other things, provides booking services for dance companies. I’m not involved in the booking department, however around APAP time, all hands need to be on deck to help run the showcases.
We organized two showcases this year for two groups of artists we represent, and I was happy to see that there were several companies: Bridgman/Packer Dance, Kinodance, Jonah Bokaer, and Troika Ranch that are integrating media in highly effective ways in their work. A couple of them I had known for a long time but never seen live, so this was a great opportunity to look at intermedia performance again with fresh eyes.
Generally, I’m a purist when it comes to dance and media. I like what matt gough calls “screendance” – dance on screen only. This is because I feel like dance is so engaging when produced well for screen that I don’t want to be asked to look anywhere else when I watch it. However, I have experimented with using video projections in my own live dance pieces, and there are a few instances when I have been really impressed by media used in live work. Happily the performances I saw this weekend all expanded my views of media in live dance.
My usual gripe with intermedia performance is that the video projections tend to upstage the live action on stage. As soon as the video goes on, the dancers become dwarfed by the projection and seem to be little insects buzzing around the main event, which are the giant images on screen. Too few artists seem to understand the powerful pull video has on an audience’s eyes, and they don’t take this into account when designing their productions. For Bridgman/Packer and Kinodance however, this has been handled impeccably well.
Bridgman/Packer (Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer) is collaborative duo that began using video several years ago to multiply themselves on stage. In their performances, life size images of themselves appear and vanish just as the real them appear and vanish behind invisible curtains and hanging screens. The result is a moving tromp l’oeil (eye-trick) that is truly delightful. Their work is generally pretty light-hearted and fun, a welcome relief from the usual heavy modern dance fare. I have actually found myself smiling while watching their work, feeling the edges of my eyes crinkle, and and leaning forward in my seat to try to follow the dance better. It’s almost therapeutic to be entertained by a dance performance these days, and Bridgman/Packer can deliver the goods.
Photo: Bridgman/Packer’s Under the Skin by Paul B. Goode
What's My Frame?
Matt Gough replied to my call to action in “What’s in a Name?” and posted a couple responses on his tumblr, Quodlibet: here and here.
He asks: so i’m wondering how anna frames her work … why the preference for video dance, and what is her genre?
Well, as my blog is aptly titled, my frame moves around a lot. I
started out an experimentalist. I was just excited by what I could do
with a camera that I couldn’t do with live choreography. I was mostly
influenced by Maya Deren,
and her extensive experimentation with choreography for the camera. My
definitions of dance and choreography were always quite wide, but
having a camera to look through blew them open even further. I could
capture movement wherever I found it and through editing I could shape
it anyway I chose. The movement didn’t need to be executed by humans. I
could create viewable dances literally out of anything, and in fact my
first two videodances were edited from footage of trash found on the
streets of Brooklyn.
< “Trash Processional”
What's in a name?
I figured for my first entry I should tackle the biggest question looming over the art form of dance for the camera today, and that is: what should it be called?
There are so many names being batted around: screendance, dance film, cinedance, kinodance, videodance, media dance. I’m sure there are more I don’t even know. Each one has its merits and problems. Each one is has its staunch following of supporters and naysayers.
But what is important about having a name? Everyone is always complaining about being pigeon-holed, mislabeled, stuck in a category. Isn’t one of the great things about this art form that it’s still emerging and being defined? Practitioners in the field now are like pioneers on the new frontier. As my friend Matt Cook, a Milwaukee-based poet says: “It was easy to write the Great American Novel when there were only 5 American Novels.” How exciting to be on the vanguard of a wave that hasn’t crested yet!
