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Deadline: July 20th, 2010
Festival date: August 19-20, 2010

Eko & Sen Hea: A Journey Beyond

The 2010 Kinetic Cinema series kicks off with a night of dance on film curated by renowned filmmaker Carmella Vasser-Johnson.    

Wednesday, February 24 @ 7:00pm · FREE   

Institute of Contemporary Art · University of Pennsylvania
118 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289 · 215.898.5911   

Victoria Marks & Deborah May: Mother's and Daughters

Kinetic Cinema  

is a New York based screening series that explores the intersection of dance and the moving image.  Organizer Anna Brady Nuse invites a special guest from the dance and film communities to share the films and videos that have inspired and influenced their own work.       

Note on Program from Carmella Vasser-Johnson:     

When I was first approached about sharing a program of dance films that influence and inspire the work that I produce, I was immediately reminded of a pivotal point in my career: in 1999 I joined a group of dance-media makers from across the country and Canada for a fellowship program mentored by a prestigious group of leaders in the field. Over the course of many months I worked with pioneers of dance film like Jac Venza, Merrill Brockway and Girish Bargava (of Dance in America) and with the talented and culturally diverse dancers of the UCLA community. I was enriched by the beauty of California’s ocean and mountains. My cup runneth over. I had only recently changed hats from being a dancer myself to working on the other side of the lens as a videographer/editor/producer. Through this program, I was immersed in a milieu that allowed me to see work from my colleagues and other artists from around the world, stretching my perspective on how to capture dance in two dimensions. I could not get enough of watching and dialoguing with other creators on how they approach their work.  

The films that I share with you in this program represent images, ideas and relationships from that time that remain vital for me today. My work now, as at the beginning, takes an archival or preservational approach. But I also long to see dance in everyday spaces, done by all kinds of people. Some of the selections here satisfy that wish as well.    

Photo: "Dancing Camera Girl" by Flickr user geishaboy500, used under Creative Commons License.

Attend the ‘Dance with Camera’ Exhibition before Kinetic Cinema at The Institute of Contemporary Art.

An exhibition and a screening program that explores a crossover between artists and dancers who make choreography for the camera. The exhibition features art works in film, video, and still photography that exemplify the ways dance has compelled visual artists to record bodies moving in time and space. Screenings elaborate the show’s theme with iconic dance films, ranging from Busby Berkeley’s Hollywood musicals to Maya Deren’s avant-garde films.  

The exhibition’s curator, Jenelle Porter, offers more than a century of filmed dance and dancing film, from the Lumière Brothers in 1896 to Flora Wiegmann dancing beside an LA freeway in 2007.  

Carmella’s Bio: 

Carmella Vassor-Johnsons’ connection to dance began as a performer having been a member of the Philadelphia Dance Company, Civic Ballet Company and Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Co.. Through her video production company Wild Child Productions, Carmella lends her sensitivity and knowledge of the craft to the arts community through the documentation of dance and the integration of media in stage works. Ms. Vassor-Johnson was awarded a Pew Fellowship for the National Dance/Media Project at the University of California (Los Angeles) and began her relationship with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2000 as resident videographer and editor. She has produced four educational documentaries for this prestigious organization. She co-directed, with Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer, the documentaries Eko & Sen Hea: A Journey Beyond, World Tea Party, part of the feature-length World Festival of Sacred Music for PBS-Los Angeles, Creating Across Cultures, commissioned by the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, and Standing at the Edge, We Dance for WYBE-PBS Philadelphia. Her other credits include the experimental video, Endangered Species, an adaptation of the stage work created and performed by hip hop pioneer Rennie Harris, and Quasi Normal, which follows choreographer Susanna Linke as she creates a new work for Jeanne Ruddy Dance. Her documentaries and experimental work have been broadcast on public television and have screened throughout the country including at the Festival of Independents (Philadelphia) and Dance and Camera Festival (New York).  

For her Kinetic Cinema program, LIQUID FILMS, cinedance pioneer, Amy Greenfield, takes dance into the water in a splash of amazing classic and neo cine-dance from 1903 to the 21st century, to transform the very nature of dance as only a screen medium can. Anna Brady Nuse interviewed Amy to find out why this theme, “Liquid”  excites her:

Liquid is sexy and always in motion and catches the light. It dances. And I found over the years so many liquid cinedances I love and feel connected to because of my own film “Tides”. And I thought how great it would be to see them all flow together.

Tides

They break boundaries which I feel still need to be broken in the field – there’s no way you can take dance and a camera into the water and not have kinetic cinema. And the definition of dance itself changes, becomes re-united with natural movement and at the same time transformed in the liquid flow, breaking totally with a tradition of dance vocabulary. All of these qualities are wonderful for cinematic material – they deal with color and light in relation to the body in motion on a cinematic level – a dynamic, unpredictable flow for both dance and camera. I feel that too much screen dance is static, and flat and unaware of the essence of cinema, which is light in motion, and how it can replace the third dimension with a transposed heightened plasticity.

“Nymph Of The Waves” was one of the first liquid cinedances, and is now an early film classic, and was perhaps the first use of a superimposition in the history of cinema. The connection was made right at the beginning, because it was a natural fit. One of Isadora Duncan’s great sources of inspiration was the movement of the ocean, but only with cinema could dance and the rhythms and motion and world of water come together and be communicated.

Your program spans the entire history of cinema. How have technological changes affected filmmakers’ treatment of this subject – water and the moving body?

To me what’s marvelous is what we do with the technology we have. Technology itself changes the kinds of films we can make but not the quality.

Yet it’s wonderful that now an individual filmmaker can successfully shoot with a light portable video camera of high enough quality underwater for a not staggering price tag. When Reifenstahl made the diving sequence from “Olympia” she had to invent technology to shoot it – gigantic cameras with a gigantic crew. But here are underwater dance films being made one-on-one, and we feel the intimacy, as in “Rapt”. And Elle Burchill can be the filmmaker and underwater dancer herself, an autobiographic cinedance. And Ben Dolphin shoots digitally with the high speed Phantom camera which can create slower than slow motion, a camera he uses for shooting TV commercials, here used for an experimental, personal cinedance.

In your film, “Tides”, the choreography of the camera is as integrated as the movement of the body being filmed. How did you direct this duet and then shape it in the editing?

I’d worked with Hilary Harris before in my film “Element” which is the mate to “Tides”. By the time we made “Tides” we almost communicated by osmosis, because we had “Element” as a basis. In “Tides” I wanted him with the Lo Cam handheld, actually standing in the waves himself, experiencing the same movement I was subjected to. And unless the film ran out or I ran out of steam we couldn’t stop, so the communion could build. The physical set-up worked in relation to communicating some key kinetic concepts: the extreme slow-motion, the movement of the camera in flow and counterflow to the human motion, and never losing the essential kinetic point of tension, where the body and ocean met. After the first shoot, looking at and discussing the film rushes became paramount -my pointing out “I want more of that, but more like this” or “I don’t want that” etc. Sometimes I directed with my hands – one hand the human motion, the other hand the camera motion, moving the hands as I wanted the two to symbiotically relate. This sense came from the fact that I had a film image going on on automatic inside my head while I was performing. So when I saw some kind of correspondence in the actual footage to that imaginary ideal film, that’d be great. While Hilary could never be inside my head, sometimes he came close.

The artists on your program represent a great range of filmmaking styles and approaches. Which are most like yours and which are the most different? Have any had an effect on your filmmaking? How?

All the films on the program are different, yet united by the maker truly wedding the surge and flow and weightless state and viscosity to how the camera moves in relation to the mover moving through the water. In that sense I feel a commonness with all the films. I feel close to the daring to expose the nude body in Sara Joel and Jody Oberfelder’s “Rapt”, the kinetic tension combined with slow motion in Ben Dolphin’s “Arising”, the film-maker herself in a journey in the water in “Mother/Daughter”, and when I saw “Immersion” several years ago I felt I wished I could have made a film something like it and felt I’d show it some day.

Arising

But the film-makers which have had the greatest affect on my film-making are Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger. Not Deren’s “Study In Choreography For Camera” except for the editing, but the beginning of “At Land”, which had such a direct influence on “Tides”, “Meshes Of The Afternoon” and “Ritual in Transfigured Time” for so many reasons, including the always inner drama coming from the silent language of movement, the border between metaphoric and real, natural movement and unnatural states, the woman’s silent journey, the strictness of structure, the mystery, the intensity. And her writing on film and dance. Kenneth keeps a great deal of this but does away with psychodrama. I hadn’t seen most of his work when I made a lot of my films but I know I was influenced by “osmosis”. He’s so powerful. Mystery and simplicity and the ‘dance’ totally part of the fabric of the film, and between the cuts, everything so cinematically visual/visionary, yet corresponding to some unknown invisible world and force. “Eaux D’Artifice” is a masterpiece. “Tides” was also influenced by Reifenstahl’s Diving Sequence from “Olympia”: the sculptural athleticism of the camera, the off axis turn of the camera, the dramatic point of intersection of body and water, the use of slow motion.

Coming up next at Kinetic Cinema:

Liquid Films

Curated by Amy Greenfield

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 7:30pm

Tickets: $10

Reservations: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/87612

Films include: “Nymph Of the Waves“, by American Mutoscope and Biograph, one of the first dance films ever made, superimposes the dancer with the ocean waves, as well as Amy Greenfield’s primal “Tides”, with Greenfield and camera operator, Hilary Harris, both braving the ocean tides in their symbiotic camera dance. Kenneth Anger’s restored “Eaux D’Artifice”, with his “Water Witch” in the Tivoli fountain, is one of the great classics of the American avant-garde, and Ben Dolphin’s “Arising” has us flying joyfully with his dancers inside a waterfall, blurring an artificial screen world and the natural world. Jodi Kaplan’s “Immersion”, Jody Oberfelder and Sara Joel’s “Rapt”, Elle Burchill’s “Mother Daughter” and Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof’s “Pulsion” all made recently, are original, daring, entrancing, lyrically beautiful new cine-dances envisioning women moving in real underwater worlds.

In order to celebrate the creativity and diversity of kinetic cinema in all its forms, from dance/film to gaming, from animation to mash-ups, we have extended the deadline for submissions for the following categories:

• Animation/Gaming – including digital animation, machinima, Second life, Virtual Reality games, motion capture.
• Cell phone – videos made using a cell phone, webcam, or Flip cam.
• Gone in 60 seconds – videos under one minute long

Please refer to our web site for details and rules for submission.

The First Annual UMove Online Videodance Festival will run from October 1-31, 2009 on the web with a live screening and launch party in New York on October 4th. Additionally we plan to tour a curated selection of videos to national and international venues in 2009-10.

Please send us your media! We look forward to seeing your work!

Pentacle’s Movement Media announces the First Annual UMOVE Online Videodance Festival from October 1-31, 2009 on the web and at select screening locations across the US and around the world in 2009-10.

UMOVE Vision Statement:

The medium of video has exploded on the web, and consequently, the web video format for dance and kinetic-based films is erupting within the media arts.

The web format has its own set of characteristics and conventions, and makes it possible for all disciplines and levels of film-makers to showcase their work.  Movement Media’s goals are to highlight new works and assist Internet audiences in finding artist’s videos specifically dedicated to movement and dance. We also aim to challenge film-makers and audiences regarding their ideas of what dance film or movement media can be.

To date, the web format for dance and kinetic-based film has been under-recognized and under-valued by dance film presenters and curators.  It’s time to give these videos a platform to receive both feedback and critical praise. We seek work that is strong in concept and execution, rather than sporting fancy production values or large budgets. Film-makers are free to use a variety of high and low tech media to create their work. We welcome work that is visually “moving” on intimate viewing devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and ipods.

Therefore, UMOVE is seeking interesting blends of dance and kinetic-based films that explore the full range and scope of this burgeoning genre.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 15, 2009

If your submission is chosen you will be required to submit digital stills and a finished copy of your video on DVD (NTSC only) for screening and publicity purposes by September 15, 2009. All submissions regardless of selection will be made available for public viewing on our blog, Move the Frame.

UMOVE submission categories

• Animation/Gaming – including digital animation, machinima, Second life, Virtual Reality games.

• Cell phone – videos made using a cell phone.

• Gone in 60 seconds – videos under one minute long

• Low/No Budget – videos made for under $1,000

• Surprise me! – unique uses of new media or digital technology

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The First Annual UMOVE Online Videodance Festival will take place October 1-31, 2009. The festival will feature short dance and movement-based videos that were made specifically for the web and other new media formats including cell phones, gaming, virtual reality worlds, and mash-ups. In addition to online programming on YouTube and Movement Media’s blog, Move the Frame, the festival will include a launch party and live screenings in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, UK, and other locations to be announced.

UMOVE was started by three dance film-makers: Kriota Willberg, Marta Renzi, and Anna Brady Nuse (Pentacle’s Director of Movement Media) who are passionate about promoting dance film through any means possible. We seek to find the most innovative and engaging dance videos on the web and to highlight rising talent in the field.

October  1st will mark the launch of UMOVE online, and on October 14th there will be a live screening and party in New York after which the festival will tour to select locations around the country and the world in 2009-10.

MISSION & OBJECTIVE
Movement Media’s mission is to provide services, strategies, and opportunities for artists making dance for the camera, and to help dance artists use media to promote and enhance their artistic pursuits.

For more info on Pentacle’s Movement Media project, please visit our blog: Move the Frame and our website: http://pentacle.org/movement-media.asp

GENERAL RULES

All submissions must exist online and be embeddable (i.e., hosted on YouTube or another sharable online video platform). All videos must be under 8 minutes long. Only one video may be submitted per entrant. Student, professional, and amateur film-makers are all encouraged to apply.

Please submit the following materials via email:

• URL address of your video (double check the link works).

• Short biography/artist statement.

• Clearly label which category the submission should be reviewed under (see category list below).

• Brief synopsis of the video.

• Principal Cast and production credits listing

• Include a link to your website (if you have one)

• Include your email address (if different from the one you are sending from).

• Paste in the Terms and Conditions (see below) and type in your signature

• Email all information to movementmedia@pentacle.org

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• I/we have read all of the rules and regulations for the UMove Online Videodance Festival (hereafter called the “Festival”).

• I/we understand and have complied with these rules.

• I/we warrant the submission of my/our original work and that there are no disputes regarding the ownership of the submission.

• I/we warrant the submitted material does not defame or invade the rights of any person living or dead

• I/we fully indemnify the Festival against any claim made for such violations of law.

• To the best of my/our knowledge, all of the statements herein are true and correct.

• I/we understand that failure to adhere to Festival rules and regulations will result in disqualification.

• I/we hold the Festival harmless from and defend against all claims, demands, losses, damages, judgements, liabilities and expenses (including attorney’s fees) arising out of or in connection with any all claims of third parties, whether or not groundless, based on any film/video submitted to the Festival or on any film/video developed out of such submission.

• By submitting this entry, I agree that the UMove Festival may publicly screen my work as well as use stills and descriptive material in the official program and any other publicity efforts.

• In the event that I am selected as a Finalist, I will provide a finished copy in the format indicated no later than September 15th, 2009.

• I agree to hold the UMOVE Festival harmless in the event of loss or damage to my entry tape or material provided for Festival screening.

Reality Dancevision: An Intimate Screen Capture of Dance Vloggers- Program Notes and Videos

Curator’s Note:

Boris Willis by Paul Emerson

The dance vlogger it seems, is a rare person to find. It is relatively easy to find dance bloggers, dance writers and dance photographers but finding professional dancers/choreographers who use the web as a primary source for showing a dance is more difficult. We see the powerful influence of the web with the disappearance of newspapers and the emergence of e-book readers such as the Kindle, the emergence of iTunes Music Store as the world’s largest seller of music, as well as the question of whether DVD’s will soon be outpaced by movie downloads. Even in this digital age, people love dance, as evidenced by video sharing sites that are replete with videos of the latest social dances and sophisticated dance videos made by amateurs.. I think that just as reality television can take you into the lives of ordinary people, online dance can take you into the lives of dance makers. We can get an intimate look at the person, not just the performer, through online video. I can’t predict that the web will provide a revolution in theatrical dance. However, I do sense a shift by some artists who feel as I do that one does not have to wait for their two nights in the theater to share their work. For this program, I will present several works by amateur and professional dancers that reveal the artist as both a performer and a person in a way that illuminates the purpose of dance in our lives as well as acknowledge the value of web as a venue.

–Boris Willis
Enjoy…

Matt Harding

Inspirational dance done by an amateur dancer who has a corporate sponsor.

Where the hell is matt/ 3:42/2006/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

Soulja BoyTell’em

Example of social dancing on the web and an example of how dances get passed down from person to person. Soulja Boy also had a hit dance and song that was replicated on the web by many.

Do Da Stanky Leg/ 1:53/2009/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro0DCOxxG18&feature=related

Leili

Belly dancing- Raks Al Baladi an example of social dance on the web.

Iranian Girl/2:53/2009 http://vimeo.com/3391786

Conor Clarke

Conor and Matt get inspired and dance for fans of their sketch comedy show. Amateur performance made entertaining through the use of editing.

Dance/:52/2009 http://vimeo.com/2529997

Dance2/2:18/2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPuh3Th-MmQ

Emma Noel

A response dance that shows the power of editing as well as show the differences in movement styles.

http://vimeo.com/76701

Mike Long

Mike did a year long dance video project posting a video everyday for a year and dance in various locations mostly around where he lived in Hamilton, Canada. Mike is a DJ and humorist with a large youtube following.

Picture on the Wall/2:32/2009/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMJAtQ-hrIo&feature=channel_page

Nick “Fresh” Puzo

NickFreshAlive is a friend of Mike Long who was inspired by him to make a video series of his own. This was a dance he did on a dare to dance in a crowed bar in front of people.

Shake Shake Shake Shake/2:43/2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kYkKqpKaFs&feature=channel_page

Click here to view the embedded video.

Melanie- Dance everywhere

Melanie creates video dances around the San Francisco area.

Tune G at Southside Park/1:29/2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti793fHZ-bM&feature=channel_page

Lee Atwell

Lee creates a dance video everyday inspired by butoh. She owns a yoga studio in Seattle.

Garden Shack/1:59/2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjzcd8i6SRM&feature=channel_page

Liz Roncka

Liz makes a new dance video daily.

56/ 10:00/2009

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gesel Mason

Gesel has started to experiment with creating work specifically for video.

1 Thing/ 4:36/ 2009

Ashley A. Friend

Ashley combines typical vlogging or talking videos with dance. She is skilled as a dancer, choreographer and editor.

Dance and Clutter and Talk and Bathroom and Dog/8:38/2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBsyaoXKo70&NR=1

Boris Willis- Danceaday
Some examples from my site danceaday.com

Colleen and Jaclyn/:22/ 2007http://blip.tv/file/230716/

Meryl /1:24/2007 http://blip.tv/file/852526/

Human Zoo/2:39/2007 http://blip.tv/file/270927/

Capitol Spring/ 2/1:26/ 2007 http://blip.tv/file/312988/

Splinter/ 1:09/2007 http://blip.tv/file/446973/

NYC Subway /1:04/2008 http://blip.tv/file/854614/

Prayer /1:11/2007/ http://blip.tv/file/368253/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trolley People/ 1:04/2007 http://blip.tv/file/358980/

Still from danceanywhere

REALITY DANCEVISION: An Intimate Screen Capture of Dance Vloggers

Join us for the last Kinetic Cinema of the season featuring Boris Willis, a dancer, choreographer, video-maker and blogger based in Washington DC. Willis will explore the phemonena of dance vlogs (video blogs about dance) and present works by of some of the most notable and prolific dance vloggers today. In 2007-08 Willis published the vlog “Dance-a-day” in which he made and posted a dance video every day for 365 days. From his first video shot in a parking lot demonstrating effeminate gestures, to an entire month of posts about important sites of Black history in Washington DC, as well as 43 collaborations with composer David Morneau (who also posted a composition a day on his blog 60×365.com) , Willis covered the entire range of styles, experiments, and types of improvisation one can do with dance and a video camera.

Featuring the work of: Ashley A. Friend, danceanywhere, Gesel Mason, Liz Roncka, lee atwell, and Boris Willis, among others.

Kinetic Cinema

Wednesday, June 10th at 7pm

Tickets: $10 (purchase at the door)

Chez Bushwick

304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11
Brooklyn, NY 11206
718.418.4405
Directions
Google Map

Boris Willis

Boris Willis by Paul Emerson

Boris Willis is an Assistant Professor of Computer Game Design at George Mason University and the Chief Artistic Officer of Boris Willis Moves, a movement and media based performance company. He has performed with Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange, Streb, Jacob’s Pillow’s Men Dancers and the Theatre of the First Amendment.  He recently completed work on Dance-A-Day, (www.danceaday.com) a year long daily video dance project. He has an MFA in Dance and Technology from The Ohio State University, a BFA in Dance from George Mason University and a Diploma in Contemporary Dance from the NC School of the Arts.

About Kinetic Cinema

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. For each screening Anna Brady Nuse, Pentacle’s director of Movement Media, invites a different guest artist from the fields of dance and media arts to share a selection of films and videos that have inspired them. These could be works for screen that feature dance, are kinetic-based, or have been influential on their work in some way. The guest curators come from a range of backgrounds as performers, choreographers, critics, video artists, and film-makers.

For more info on Pentacle’s Movement Media project and news about the next Kinetic Cinema season, please visit our website: http://pentacle.org/movement_media.asp

Given all the possibilities of dance on screen, choreographers for the camera have a multitude of ways to keep us astonished.  Fortunately, the creative interaction between film technique and dance are endless.  In the emerging field of Cinedance, filmmakers or video artists create works that use dance as raw material, and now, choreographic achievements are being made available to the video artist for artistic exploration.

At the last Kinetic Cinema screening on May 13th at Chez Bushwick, curator Victoria Murphy showed a video by Matt Tarr and Ami Ipapo entitled ‘Little Ease (Outside the Box)’ that was a screen adaptation of Elizabeth Streb’s iconic solo ‘Little Ease’. For the film version of the piece, Streb company member Ami Ipapo reconstructed the choreography off-stage in an urban landscape.  The choreography of the live piece on its own is powerful, but the film was able to capture more action and intensity in the piece. I felt more connected to the dancer by being able to hear her breathing, and see her minute facial expressions as she powerfully pushes through the movements. The film took me “inside the box” with the dancer, and I forgot that I was a voyeur watching a choreographed work, something that rarely happens when watching a live performance. My favorite element of this Cinedance was the artistry in editing together of the shots of choreography, which to me added a new specific cinematic “pulse” to Streb’s dance.

Fortunately, other dance icons are lending their choreographed works to video artists to create cinedances. For instance the Martha Graham Company recently released videos of several dances from Martha Graham’s Clytemnestra to be remashed and reedited by contestants in their Clytemnestra Remash Challenge. The contestants displayed a huge range of styles and approaches to remashing the choreographic material, and all of the contest entries are available for view on the Clytemenestra Remash Challenge website at http://clytemnestraproject.com.

I am a personal fan of taking choreographed works made for the stage out into the world to be performed, so I was very pleased to see so many  video artists take Martha Graham’s choreography and characters into new environments off stage.  To me, it made the characters more appealing and more passionate. As a result, I found myself enjoying and connecting with Graham’s work on another level.   The following submission was my personal favorite in the Remash Contest.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The winners of the Remash Contest for Martha Graham’s Clytemnestra have been announced.  Check out their videos and look at some of the other contestants as well. Voting is still open for the popular choice awards! Regardless of the winners, I am thrilled to see new film-makers responding to choreography and furthering the development of cinedance.

People all over the globe are now able to share and collaborate on artistic works over the Internet. Dance innovators would be wise to tap into these new possibilities and use today’s networked media technologies to make the works of dance masters more accessible. In so doing, like Martha Graham and Elizabeth Streb, they would ensure the cultural significance of their work over time, while also enabling to new works of art to be made and contributing to new developments in cinedance.

Daft Bodies

Starting Friday June 5th, Pentacle’s Movement Media will showcase winners of  a new weekly online videodance contest here on Move the Frame blog.

Video is exploding as a medium on the Web, and the web video format for dance and kinetic-based films is erupting within the media arts. Movement Media’s goal is to showcase these new works and assist Internet audiences in finding artist’s videos on the web which are specifically dedicated to movement and dance. Therefore, we are seeking interesting blends of dance and kinetic-based films which explore the range and scope of this burgeoning genre.

The first submission deadline for Movement Media’s Weekly Online Videodance Contest is June 2nd, with the winners to be showcased here on  Move the Frame on Friday June 5th.   A weekly Theme will structure the format of the submissions. You do not have to be a video-maker to submit a video. You can also nominate other people’s work if you think it fits the weekly theme and otherwise complies with the submission requirements.

Submission Requirements

• Submissions may be made by anyone – artists, film makers, and anyone who knows of online videos that fit the weekly themes.
• The video submitted must be under 10 minutes long.
• Pick/Submit one video to represent the theme identified.
• Send the link of the video to Movement Media (movementmedia@pentacle.org).
• The video submitted needs to be embeddable, ie hosted on YouTube or another sharable online video platform.
• Include a short biography/artist statement (if it is your work).
• For every submission, include a short summary that describes why you have chosen a particular video for the contest and describe how it relates to the weekly theme.
• Include a brief synopsis of the video.
• Include a link to your website (if you have one)
• Include your email address

Email all information to movementmedia@pentacle.org
If your submission is chosen for the weekly contest, we will contact you directly

Impetus for Contest Participants

• Have your videos seen by an online audience who’s interested in movement-based video.
• Receive publicity for your work/work of others
• Receive comments and feedback
• Automatic consideration for live screening at Kinetic Cinema in NYC.
• Automatic consideration for Movement Media’s Online Dance Film Festival in September 2009 (information and submission guidelines to be available here in late June).

The Irrepressibles' IN THIS SHIRT by Shelley Love

Online Video Contest Themes

Theme one:  Amateur or Professional
Submissions due by June 2nd.  Weekly contest winners announced on June 5th.

Submit one video that represents either a amateur or professional video.  Movement Media is dedicated to celebrating all levels of artistry by film makers.  Movement Media’s blog will address important differences, and offer feedback and recognition to the artists of the works chosen from the pool of submissions for this weekly theme.

Theme two:  Improvised or Choreographed
Submissions due by Monday June 9th.  Weekly Contest winners announced on June 12th.

Theme three: Modern or Classical
Submissions due by June 16th.  Weekly Contest winners announced on June 19th.

Theme four: Summer or Winter
Submissions due by June 23rd.  Weekly Contest winners announced on June 26th.

Theme five: Rehearsal or Performance
Submissions due by June 29th.  Weekly Contest winners announced on July 3rd.

*Future themes to be announced at a later date.*

DRIVE by Jane Osborne and Jeff Pelletier

About Movement Media

Pentacle’s Movement Media provides services, strategies, and opportunities for dance artists to make works for screen. The core activities of Movement Media are screenings, consulting services, workshops, and interactive media publications (blogs, social networks, online videos etc). These services address a growing need for dance artists to engage with media, particularly online and on new media platforms, in order to reach audiences, grow artistically, and stay relevant in today’s media-saturated world.

For more info on Pentacle’s Movement Media project, please visit our website: http://pentacle.org/movement-media.asp

We look forward to showcasing your work!