Posts Tagged ‘NYC’

by Anna Brady Nuse

(re)Action by Victoria Murphy

At Victoria Murphy’s talk and screening at Kinetic Cinema last Wednesday, she proposed a set of terms and definitions for classifying and identifying different forms of dance on screen. Murphy’s lexicon had similarities and differences with other proposed frameworks for screendance that have been presented and discussed at various forums and conferences in recent years. There is no doubt that this kind of discussion and debate is extremely important for the development of the genre (or some would say art form), so I would like to point out some of the main theories that exist today, and discuss how they intersect and overlap.

Screendance, cinedance, videodance, dance film… Which term to use?

In most debates about dance on screen, the first question that pops up is what is this genre called? Many different terms are in use, and in some cases they point to different genres while others are a catchall word for all dance on screen.

I think one of the best explanations of the different terms in use is by Karen Pearlman of the Physical TV company in Australia. In her article, “A Dance of Definitions” published in RealTime Arts, an Australian-based art and media blog, Pearlman reported on the dialogue at the first Screendance Conference at the American Dance Festival in 2006 around a question she raised which was: “Is dance on screen a dance art, a cinema art or a visual art?” In her estimation many of the different terms used today describe specific mixtures of two or more of these art forms at play. For Pearlman, screendance is a catchall term which could include any combination of dance and movement with “film, video, new media, installation, and future media.” The other terms are more specific in their focus. Videodance “is based in the thinking of a video art maker, a performance art maker or a visual artist will have its effect through techniques, schools, theories and premises of those disciplines.” While dance for screen “prioritises dance as its central discipline [and] will foreground the composition and exhibition of the danced movement.”

Screendance Venn Diagram by Karen Pearlman

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(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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By Dawn Paap with Anna Brady Nuse

VESTED by Kristi Faulkner

U.S. Women's Soccer

At our last Kinetic Cinema screening on April 8th, guest curator Lisa Niedermeyer presented dance films to be seen through the lens of professional sports. She featured the work of dance film makers: Charles Dennis, Alan McIntyre Smith, Lemeh42, Miriam King, Kristi Faulkner and Sylvain White.

Alongside special guest, sports videographer Ray Wenzel, Jr., six films from the above mentioned film makers were showcased to illustrate sports elements, including speed, effort, kinetic response, spectacle, competition, and endurance.

There are many shared elements between Dance and Sports.  This screening offered several suggestions of utilizing professional sports as a lens to help see heighten aspects of dance in film.

Illusion for Movements by Lemeh42

There are a number of ways to draw in the viewer to elicit a response to movement on screen. Lisa, speaking from a performer, videographer and editor’s standpoint, felt most drawn to the aspect of kinetic response for both dance and sports on film.  For her, it is important to connect with what the performer is experiencing internally to understand the story of the film maker and she illustrated her point with the film Illusion of Movements by the Italian duo, Lemeh42. In this film a woman is filmed in extreme close-up (hands, feet, chest) while she is having [what looks like] an epileptic seizure. Through the fragmented views of the woman’s convulsing body, the viewer gets a taste of what it must feel like to suddenly loose all muscular control.

Stomp the Yard

I feel that the internal experience of the performer is important, but when I think of professional sports, I find myself drawn more to the “atmosphere” or dramatic flair of an event.  I respond to the important actions during certain moments of a sporting event, and I think of capturing speed, danger and the emotions of the spectators.  Spectacle was one of the Points of View presented in the evening, and it was illustrated by an excerpt from Sylvain White’s Stomp the Yard in which two step crews battle it out on the dance floor in front of throngs of hyped up fans. For me, of all the works shown, this piece came the closest to evoking the feelings I get when watching sports. I felt connected to the situation of the competition, to groups of performers and spectators, and to the intensity of the moment.

Ray, speaking from the point of view of a sports videographer, shared his preference for capturing images to enhance the storyline of whatever sport event he’s shooting.  With each film presented, he pointed out specific details of the film making that gave life to the stories.

DUST by Anthony Atanasio and Miriam King

One of the most compelling narratives of the evening was Miriam King and Anthony Atanasio’s DUST, commissioned by South East Dance in the UK. Here a woman in a bathing suit and googles slowly breast strokes her way through a desert landscape, battling heat, dust, and time to reach water. The film captured one of the hardest things to show on screen, the inner game that goes on inside every performer and athlete, but which lies at the heart of every great story.

Ray shared a story about a niche form of car racing called endurance racing, which he shoots every year. In endurance racing, the team that travels the greatest distance around the track in 24 hours wins. He talked about a race in Florida last year where the top two teams were only 10 seconds apart from each other after 12 hrs and only a few minutes apart at the very end. This is like crossing the country in 24 hrs, leaving from New York and ending up neck and neck at the finish line at the Pacific Ocean. For Ray, the drama lies in how well the teams work together and their ability to endure and battle fatigue to be the fastest, most efficient racers over a long period of time. This is not easy to capture on film, however it is his task as a camera-man to tell a captivating story for the viewers. He also shared ways he works to capture “behind the scenes footage” of games and races, such as the choreographed and skillful moves of a race crew changing a tire and refueling a car in 15 seconds flat, or how hockey players maneuver around the player with the puck to set up the perfect pass. All of these details are hidden gems of information that help to bring a sporting competition (or a dance) to life on screen.

Regardless of the preferences one may have for viewing sports or dance films, there are many interesting areas of overlap between the two. This screening offered insights into a few of these areas of intersection. A companion program to this screening would be to look at sports on screen from the point of view of dance. For instance the balletic leap of the wide receiver making a catch in the end zone and replayed in slow motion. Elements of grace certainly seem to come up in sports footage all the time. I’m sure there are many more lenses to find! Anyone have suggestions for the sequel: P.O.V. Dance? List them here, or relay your own experiences seeing a dance on film that evoked a response normally associated with sports viewing…

(“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

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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