Use the BOXCAR application on your iphoneand receive a Tweet ‘reminder’ about Movement Media’sUMOVE Online Videodance Festival on October 1st! This way you can view the Film Festival easily on your iphone.
Watch the official selections for UMOVE Touring Festival and enjoy other submissions by Video Artists and Dancers. After viewing the videos, share a comment with us, and let us know what you think of these Dance Film shorts. We’d love to hear your feedback!
Want a reminder about the UMOVE networking party and fundraiser happening this Sunday evening -or- want to invite someone you know to attend? You can receive a Tweet invitation & RSVP to attend ourUMOVE Launch Party in NYC!For details, go to: http://tinyurl.com/mjkdrk.
Launch Party, Sunday, October 4th, offers 2 screenings (7:30 & 9:30pm), electronic music & video mixing, live dance performances, and networking for video artists, film makers, composers, and dancers!
Be a part of Movement Media’s Fundraising Party to support dance film makers. Come and meet a network of professionals who can help you create your own videodances and dance promo videos!
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.
As mourning for dance GREATS have been felt deeply as of late, most recently with Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch, Michael Jackson, and Frankie Manning, 2009 has balanced this sadness with jubilation and a renewed celebration for dancing. Please view our weekly blog postings that pay tribute to each of these dance legends.
One dance icon who impacted me greatly was Frankie Manning, who’s unflagging vitality throughout his life (and into his 90’s) for dancing and performing inspired me to and many others to learn the exciting dance style called the Savoy Style or Lindy Hop.
The Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Memorial in New York City commemorated the Lindy Hop legend, who sadly passed away peacefully on April 27th, just weeks shy of his actual birthday on May 26. Swing dancers around the globe celebrated his 95th in true fashion by dancing all day and night until the music stopped! (This is the philosophy of a Lindy Hopper, as you learn by viewing video footage of these dancers, young and old.)
Needless to say, Lindy Hoppers gave Frankie the swinging-est Memorial Festival ever! For a complete viewing of Frankie’s Birthday Memorial, go to Frankie95.com, which offers a complete DVD box set of the event.
Frankie Manning was one of the last great swing dancers from the Jazz Age of the 30s and 40s. As part of the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, Frankie was a true innovator of the dance — creating the flashy moves and gravity-defying aerials (or air steps)that inspired a nation-wide movement of swing dancers.
He danced in several major motion-pictures, notably ”Hellzapoppin”. This footage showcases Swing Dance Jam Circles in Lindy Hop and Frankie’s amazing aerials that make the Jam Circle ‘pop’ with excitement!
Frankie performed for stage productions, won national dance championships, and wow’ed audiences around the world. Then, in 1984 Frankie became an “Ambassador of Lindy Hop” and spent 20 years inspiring a new generation of swing dancers around the world, from the United States to Singapore to Melbourne to Stockholm to Buenos Aires.
As a tribute to the swing dancing leader of lindy hop, over 2,000 people converged in New York City to celebrate the life and the dance of Frankie Manning. During Frankie’s funeral service at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, couples dances in the aisles of the church and continued their memorial procession and dance through Central Park.
Lindy hoppers showcased Frankie’s legendary aerial moves during the ‘Hellzapoppin Dance Competition’, and danced throughout the evening.
During this celebration and across the globe, dancers performed the ‘Shim Sham Shammy’ line dance that Frankie taught us. Enjoy this worldwide videodance tribute to the Shim Sham, made as a present by hundreds of swing dancers for Frankie for his 95th birthday.
Beyond the steps, Frankie Manning taught us how to be better people, not just better dancers. He taught us to respect our dance partners as leads and allow ourselves as women to be treated like queens–while spinning, hopping, rolling, and flying over each other at incredibly fast speeds. I loved learning his explosive aerials and playful moves during my training and performances in Lindy Hop. He taught us to dance with joy and with passion, bouncing to the syncopated rhythm that defines east coast swing.
Frankie danced wonderfully in his 90’s, and is the perfect role model for lifelong dancing. View the “Never Stop Swinging”online documentary done by PBS’s Channel Thirteen, which showcases Frankie’s dancing abilities throughout his lifetime, including scenes of Manning’s later birthday parties, where he danced with one woman for each year he’d been alive!
Frankie Manning has given the world so much, and he will be loved and cherished for generations to come.
The Lindy Hop continues to maintain a strong following, and classes, events and competitions can be found across the globe. For information on the NYC swing scene and national swing events, check out www.yehoodi.com.
Open Video is a broad based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” they think of open source and open codecs. They’re right—but there’s more to Open Video than open codecs. Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. Open Video is about the legal and social norms surrounding online video. It’s the ability to attach the license of your choice to videos you publish. It’s about media consolidation, aggregation, and decentralization. It’s about fair use. In short, it’s about a lot of things, and that’s why the first ever Open Video Conference Held on June 19th and 20th here in NYC was a fascinating event for anyone in the business of producing or consuming video.
On April 24th Movement Research presented “Internet Killed the Video Star”, a night of dance video work created by performers, choreographers, and visual artists was as part of their Spring Roll Call festival at Monkey Town in Williamsburg. All the works shown were originally submitted via internet, and the program was designed to support artistic considerations of resolution, degradation and quality within kinetic film arts. Since the Monkey Room has centrally-seated DJs/VJs who project videos on all four floor-to-ceiling screens, it offers an intense viewing experience in a cozy atmosphere. Watching the program on four big screens I was uncertain regarding the intended format of each film, and I quickly became aware of the effects of viewing different works on a small screen versus a large screen.
Some films seemed more powerful being shown on the four large screens at Monkey Town, while the film “MM2″ by Rebecca Gaffney felt overwhelming to view due to the intense strobe lights used in the film. Later in viewing this on a smaller singular screen, it was more forgiving on the eyes, and kept me “pulled in” and interested (rather than making me want to close my eyes to ward off a pounding head ache as it did at Monkey Town).
I found Ben Pranger’s “Erased Dance” film intriguing during the screening, as it was the only silent film presented. The absence of music seemed to soften the movements of the dancer, and the full wide shot of the dancer’s body, that was continually being erased, was very effective, especially on the floor-to-ceiling screens at the MonkeyTown. This was a case where I found the work to be much more powerful on the large screen, rather than the small computer screen.
The remaining films presented by Movement Research seemed to work on either a computer screen or as a large projection. Gina T’ai’s “Lumiere D’Ampoule” had a wonderful use of still images of the dancer with fabulous lighting effects. Her work is beautiful, and it is easy to see why she was chosen as winner of the Dance for Camera 2007 student film award.
Our own Anna Brady Nuse (Pentacle’s director of Movement Media) showed “Funf ‘n’ Twist”, a fun and lighthearted look at dance on prom night. Another delightful piece was Alex Cassal & Alice Ripoll’s “Journey to the Navel of the World”, in which action figures traveled across landscapes of human bodies. Comedy was central in both of these pieces, which made them especially enjoyable and memorable.
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.
Move the Frame is the official blog of Pentacle's Movement Media, a project serving to help dance and media artists make dances for screen and use media to market their dance work more effectively. Move the Frame is a locus for dialogue about the form and a clearing-house of information about all things dance and media related.
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