"Coup de Grace" by Clara Van Gool

Whether your interest is in ballet stars of bygone eras or edgy dance films that push at the boundaries of cinema, there is something for you at the Dance On Camera Festival. The question is just how to find it. The good news is that this year, the festival programming on the Dance Films Association’s website is quite easy to navigate. Arranged by genre, title, and schedule, it is easy to zero in on the programs that you most want to see.

For fans of screendance, the genre of dance made for the camera, the bad news is that there are only two shorts programs being shown at the Dance On Camera Festival this year, but luckily they are good ones. The first is the Dance Film Narratives program, playing on Jan 27^th and 29^th. Featuring two highly anticipated films by veteran dance filmmakers, Clara Van Gool and Pontus Lidberg, this program will be seeped in dramatic storytelling and breathtaking choreography for the camera. Coup de Grace the latest dance film by Clara Van Gool (director of the acclaimed screen adaptation of DV8’s Enter Achilles) features Jordi Cortes Molina and Damian Munoz, two adversaries who meet in a remote location and engage in a physical and emotional duel. Pontus Lidberg’s Labyrinth Within hauntingly depicts the suspense and jealousy surrounding a love triangle and features NYC Ballet Principal Wendy Whelan and a commissioned score by David Lang.

The second opportunity to see dance for camera is the Shorts Program, a free event at Lincoln Center’s new Elinor Bunin Monroe Auditorium on Saturday Jan 28^th. A lighthearted and whimsical selection will be shown here, and features some work by local favs including Jody Oberfelder’s case of mistaken identity, Come Sit Stay and Pooh Kaye’s romp on the wild side in Spring Cleaning.

There are several other other notable screendances sprinkled throughout the festival, including Ora, the first film to use 3D thermal imaging (part of Pilobolus and shorts), and Falling, a gorgeously rendered film about dancers and gravity made by Adrian Churchill the special effects creator of the BBC television series, Merlin.

Several documentaries in this year’s festival seem to blur the boundaries of reality and experimental art film. Examples can be found in the Dance Legacies program on Jan 30^th & 31^st featuring artful shorts about dance being passed through the generations (Cari Ann Shim Sham’s Sand) and as commentary on social changes (David Rousseve’s portrait of Indonesia in Two Seconds After Laughter and Bruce Berryhill & Martha Curtis’s documentary on Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s work after Hurricane Katrina, Re-staging Shelter). The roots of Robert Wilson’s enigmatic theatre work are exposed in The Space In Back of You an homage to the radical Japanese performer and choreographer Suzushi Hanayagi, whom Wilson collaborated with for 20 years.

Last but not least, you don’t want to miss Sally Sommers, Charles Atlas, and Michael Schwartz’s long awaited documentary Check Your Body at the Door, a tribute to New York’s underground House culture, featuring dances filmed over twenty years and never seen before on screen. Check Your Body will be preceded by freedom2dance, a short that examines the devastating impact of Mayor Giuliani’s strict enforcement of the Cabaret Laws on New York’s once thriving underground dance club culture. This program will also screen the winner of DFA’s first High School Student Film Competition, giving us a sneak peak at the future of screendance!

The 40^th edition of the Dance On Camera Festival will take place from January 27-31 at the Walter Reade Theater as well as the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center.  For more information go to DFA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s websites to see the full line-up, as well schedule and ticket information.

Performa 11, one of two new festivals in NYC that defy artistic boundaries post-9/11

Like many people, the 10^th Anniversary of 9/11 brought up many “What if’s” for me. What would my life be like now if 9/11 hadn’t happened? What would my art look like? What would the fields of dance and dance film look like? And then after being baffled by those questions, I started to think about what actually did happen. How did September 11th, 2001 change my views of my artistic work, and my chosen field of dance?

For me, I wonder if I would have become obsessed with dance for the camera. Without the traumas of 9/11 and the political and cultural awakening it inspired in me, I might not have felt such an urgent need to seek other outlets for artistic expression. In an uncertain world, film and new media gave me hope that my artistic work could make a difference in the world. The feelings of mortality that were triggered by 9/11 made me desperate to be able to create work that would last (ie be able to be watched repeatedly) and the rage and violence that has surrounded the event (and still does to this day) gave me an urgent need communicate with people outside of my tiny circle of acquaintances. I felt that if we were to reconcile with our enemies and restore stability to our lives, then we had to start communicating and learning about each other. Live performance was too limiting for me, I needed to tap into media, and thankfully with the rise of broadband internet that became more possible than ever before.

Looking around at the greater effects of 9/11 on the arts and dance in particular, I can see that I was not the only one looking outside of my discipline at that time. One of the biggest art trends of the last ten years is the movement towards interdisciplinary work. Everywhere you turn you see all the arts mixing and intermingling. Dance in particular has become almost ubiquitous in art museums and gallery spaces. The Guggenheim started the highly popular Works & Process series that has presented many dance companies over the years. The Whitney’s Biennials are peppered with dance works, and smaller museum and gallery spaces such as P.S. 1, Chelsea Art Museum and Location One are hotbeds of interdisciplinary artistic activity. I commonly read artist bios that say “choreographer, dancer, and visual artist” (such as those of Ralph Lemon, Shen Wei, Tony Orrico, and Yvonne Rainer to name a few). Likewise, many visual artists repeatedly incorporate dance into their work (such as Kelly Nipper, Julia Mandle, Christian Marclay, and Isaac Julien).

Curators have had a huge influence on this shift to a post-disciplinary era. Two of the most progressive festivals to have emerged in New York after 9/11 are FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival, and Performa. Both were born in the mid 00’s to advance boundary-defying artistic practices through commissions and presentations. Crossing the Line has an emphasis on French and American artistic exchange, however it keeps a very broad view of what that exchange could entail. Performa was founded by Roselee Goldberg, a leading authority on performance art since the ‘70’s, whose festival’s mission is “dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.”

Both Performa and Crossing the Line have pioneered new curatorial approaches to performance presentation, that revolve more around central ideas and less on the particular art forms that are on display. In this year’s Crossing the Line Festival program, the events are grouped around 3 curatorial perspectives: “Fiction & Non-Fiction”, “Lecture/Performance” series, and “Endurance/Resistance/Inspiration.” Within these categories are works that incorporate all the art forms and most of them are interdisciplinary, such as choreographer Kelly Bartosik’s “i like penises: a little something in 24 acts” that involves a dialogue between three dancers and a visual artist that perform live alongside each other in layered scenes. Performa endeavors to single out the influence of performance on the visual arts, both past and present. This leads to programming that is by nature interdisciplinary as multiple art forms collide and are influenced by each other within the works, such as choreographer Boris Charmatz’s “Musée de la Danse (Dancing Museum): Expo Zéro,” an exhibition that takes place in empty rooms and includes both real and imagined performance.

After 9/11, artists – particularly in New York City – suffered on many levels. We experienced rage, sorrow, and exasperation as our nation inflicted violence and war on innocent people while using every excuse to devalue the arts – the very lifeblood of culture that restores humanity and compassion in the world. Despite this, I believe that amazing growth has taken place in the arts that has led artists to see beyond boundaries and closed-mindedness within our own communities, and forced us to grapple with the world in a way that is collaborative, healing and ultimately life-affirming. I believe in the power of artists to regenerate a fractured and ailing world no matter what happens and under any circumstances. As much as I wonder how my life could have been easier and better if the events on 9/11 hadn’t occurred, I am so thankful that I was driven to explore the medium of film, and the infinite artistic riches that lay there for me.

FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival is taking place now until October 16^th at venues all over New York City.

Performa 11 will take place November 1–21, 2011 in New York City.

Anna Brady Nuse is a dance filmmaker and director of Pentacle’s Movement Media. Examples of her work can be seen here.

Moment by Katrina McPherson

The University of Utah’s Departments of Modern Dance and Film and Media Arts are offering two opportunities to work with award-winning Scottish dance filmmaker, Katrina McPherson, in her first American residencies. Set in the beautiful mountain city of Salt Lake this two-week workshop offers in-depth experience for choreographers and filmmakers in shooting and editing dance for the camera. Ms. McPherson will hold screenings, discussions, demonstrations, and will oversee the creation of screendance studies by each participant. Editing facilities and personnel will be available, as will dancers for choreographic projects.

Weekend Workshop: September 15 – 17 — Weeklong Intensive Workshop: September 19 – 24

An evening of student works will be presented on Thursday, September 15, 2011 in conjunction with the International Dance for the Camera Festival.

For more information and to register for the workshops go to the Festival website.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Follow the rest of the project on http://www.salts.nl/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out more featured web dances on our YouTube Channel.

Doug Elkins with Kaya, a student at Beacon High School, NYC Screen Grab

Tuesday, February 23 at 8:00 pm

WHERE THE DANCE IS: Doug Elkins at Beacon School.  A 16-minute documentary directed by Marta Renzi

at
Duo Theater
62 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave & Bowery in NYC

At this Audience Choice screening you’ll see five short movies and will be given a ballot to rate each film. The highest rated films will be screened at the Festival in April, 2010.

The Duo Theater screening room is a charming and intimate turn of the century theater with wide aisles for viewing comfort. Each evening’s programming will last approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Here’s the info on tickets and the other films showing in the series:

https://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?EID=&showCode=6TH4&GUID=

For news of other upcoming Renzi events:

http://martarenzi.blogspot.com

Announcing Movement Media’s YouTube Channel: FilmingDance4web Video Dance Channel

Featuring Artistic Video dances made by amazing choreographers, dancers, video artists, film directors, dance companies, and beginning film makers interested in making dance for camera.

Join Our Videodance Community of Artists by sharing your work with us.

Choreographer, Christine Soriano. Photo by Rex Miller

Types of videos featured on Video Dance Channel:

• Dance Installations from Museums
• Works created for Video Art Festivals
• Dance Films featured in Dance Film Festivals
• Urban Dance Projects
• Dance Company Artists: Choreography and Movement for Camera
• Creative Stories and Video Art developed by Artists from across the Globe.
• Flashmob Dance Videos
• Dance ‘Webisodes’
• Silly, ‘Just for fun videos’
• Videos by Emerging Artists within the Videodance Community

Movement Media helps Emerging Film Artists develop creative projects.

Photo by Lois Greenfield

• Attend our Meet-up Groups to Practice Filming Dance (dates and locations to be announced in up-coming weeks).
• Your videos can be featured on our channel for viewing, feedback, and discussion by artists in the videodance community.

Your videodance may be:

• featured on our Video Dance Channel
• chosen for our Kinetic Cinema Screenings,
• or showcased at our annual UMove Online Videodance Festival

Movement Media also offers services to help dance companies, choreographers and other artists develop work for film festivals, art installations, and other film projects.

Urban Playground Quartet at the Awesome Arts Festival

• After the touring of your work, we would be happy to feature your work in Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema Screenings or for other educational purposes.

• If you would like to work with Movement Media on a dance film, contact us at movementmedia@pentacle.org

The Film Society of Lincoln Center
and Dance Films Association, Inc.
proudly present

Dance on Camera Festival
January 25 – February 2, 2010

Imago-by Alwin Nikolais

Co-sponsored by The Film Society of Lincoln Center since 1996, Movement Research since 2008, TenduTv and Mark Morris Dance Center since 2010, Dance On Camera Festival (DOCF) celebrates the immediacy, energy, and mystery of dance as combined with the intimacy of film. Festival 2010 will include a tribute to Alwin Nikolais as part of a year long centennial celebration across the country in his honor.

2010 Schedule and NYC Locations of Dance on Camera Events

January 25, 7pm, Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn Read details

January 26, 7pm, Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South, NYC
event curated and co-sponsored by Movement Research Read details

January 28, 2pm, The Beacon School, 227 W 61st Street, NYC Read details

January 29-February 2, Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Center Plaza
4 shows daily – see schedule

January 31, 1pm, Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery, Town Hall Meeting read details

Buy Tickets for screenings at the Walter Reade Theatre
Dance on Camera Festival 2010 Tickets:
$11 General Public
$9 Affiliate (Friends of DFA)
$8 Senior (62+)
$7 Film Society Member/ DFA Member/ Student/ Child

Three Program Sampler Pass:
$27 General Public
$21 Senior (62+)
$18 Film Society Member/ DFA Member/ Student
Admits one person to three programs in Dance On Camera.

Buy Tickets and Passes Online Now!

Tickets are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater Box Office,
165 West 65th St. between Amsterdam Avenue & Broadway,
and at CenterCharge, 212-721-6500.

Read Festival Blog by Artistic Director

See which artists scheduled to appear

During the 2010 Dance on Camera Festival, Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theatre will house an installation, “The Tiny Dance Film Series” a collaboration between choreographer Peter Kyle and sound artist James Bigbee Garver that consists of very short and very small dance films screened in 4 darkened kiosks for an audience of one.

Susan Braun began this festival in 1971 to connect dance film producers with users and distributors, to spur dancers on to preserve their work on film and to be open to filmmakers wishing to make documentaries about them and/or to collaborate on screen adaptations of their choreography. For almost twenty years, DFA’s Festival was the sole showcase dedicated to dance films in the world. For the last ten years, DFA’s Festival has offered a revenue source for the dance filmmakers through their tours.

“The Dance on Camera Festival is one of those NY stealth events, prized by its devotees…where the allusiveness of dance meets the intimacy of film to create a new kind of magic” John Rockwell, The New York Times

The Dance on Camera Festival 2010 is sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Canadian Consulate General, French Cultural Service, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, American Airlines, Mark Morris Dance Center, TenduTv, Gotham Wine and Liquors, Ariston Florist, New York Women in Film and Television, and the members of DFA. See full list of sponsors

The program for the digital component of Dance on Camera Festival hosted by Tendu.TV will be announced shortly.

Join the fun!