10 Dance and Movement Animations

Movement Media is delighted to have Doug Fox as a guest blogger for this week’s posting.  Back in February 2009, Doug presented several movement-based animations as a guest curator for Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema program.   Click here to read our blog posting featuring Doug’s Animation program at the screening.

Doug Fox’s Picks for Dance and Movement Animations

One of the captivating elements of dance and animation is the diverse range of forms it can take. Among the animation techniques that can be employed to represent the body in motion, whether in a more concrete or abstract manner, include:

• 2D
• 3D
• Stop motion
• Live-action and animation hybrids
• Real-time animated graphics using motion tracking
• Visualization overlays
• Special effects
• ASCII-based animations
• Digital puppetry
• Cut-out animation
• Motion-capture based
• 2D/3D lasers
• Rotoscoped
• Virtual worlds
• Pre-cinema era animations

For Doug’s round-up of some of his favorite dance and movement animations he made selections of each of these different types of animations.  A few videos chosen by Doug couldn’t be embedded onto our blog for your viewing convenience, but we encourage you to take a minute to check out these great videos, to learn about the many types of dance and movement-based animated videos artists are creating. Enjoy!

Rotoscoped Tango dance scene from “Waking Life”:

Gabrielle Lamb’s “Quizas” mixes 2D animation and live-action footage:

“En Tus Brazos” is a narrative-based 3D animation about a tragic accident that besets a famous Argentinean Tango dancer:

Also enjoy an ASCII-based animation “TextField” by Chirstinn Whyte and Jake Messenger:

http://www.jakemessenger.plus.com/textfield-h264.mov

The Converse music video “My Drive-Thru” is based on the cut-out animation technique:

Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance” is a stop-motion music video compiled from thousands of photographs:

The “Prodigy Warrior’s Dance” combines stop-motion animation and puppetry:

The Recoil Performance Group’s “Body Navigation” uses motion tracking and projectors to general real-time, interactive graphics in a performance environment:

“Trash Dance” features 3D animation and motion capture:

Lastly, Doug offers us “Anima Istanbul”, which re-creates the feeling of the pre-cinema era zoetrope effect:

http://motionographer.com/theater/if-2009-zoetrope/

Movement Media appreciates Doug sharing some of his favorite animated videodances with our readers.  As you can see, artists are making some extraordinary animations, and there will certainly be more exciting works in the future, as more artists are combine animation with dance and movement.

Doug Fox is the founder of Great Dance, one of the first dance blogs. His blog and speaking programs have primarily addressed how dance-makers can embrace the Internet and digital tools to enhance their marketing and promotional efforts. He is an active member of the dance community and serves on the Dance/NYC Advisory Board.

Doug began to study and research all forms of animation, especially as they relate to dance and movement. This research led to the creation of his dance animation educational program, which he was delighted to introduce at Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema. Doug is continuing to expand this screening program and workshop and it will be shown on August 16th at the Hong Kong Science Museum presented by the City Contemporary Dance Company.

Doug can be reached at doug@greatdance.com and through his Great Dance website: http://greatdance.com. You can also follow his Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/dougfox.

Dance Tributes Around the World for the Dance Legend, Michael Jackson

by Dawn Paap

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.

Movement Media Videodance Contest Winners: Pop Dance Phenomenon!

By Mollie Shapiro

Thank you to everyone who nominated a video for this week’s “Pop Dance Phenomenon” theme! We really enjoyed getting a chance to see your favorite viral videos!! This was the last week we were accepting submissions and nominations for our Videodance Contest. Next week will be guest curated by Doug Fox of Greatdance.com, who will be presenting wonderful dance animation videos.

If you didn’t get a chance to participate in the contest, don’t fret. We have a brand new opportunity for you! Movement Media is excited to introduce UMove, our First Annual Online Videodance Festival!! UMove will feature short dance and movement-based videos that were made specifically for the web and other new media formats. For more information about the festival and for submission details, please click here.

POP DANCE PHENOMENONS

As technological advancements continue to infiltrate our society, YouTube has emerged as the new hit-maker of today. This platform has led to the discovery of countless videos that would never have been shown on TV, and given them the chance to spread swiftly through virtual word of mouth. Although there are many videos that have gone viral on YouTube, the six that we have selected are each strong representations of one of three categories; “The Earlies,” “Global Phenomenons,” or “Sponsors/Marketing.”

The videos representing “The Earlies” are:

“Here It Goes Again” by Ok Go

and ”Evolution of Dance” by Judson Laipply

“Here it Goes Again”

The American band Ok Go struck gold when their quirky music video choreographed on treadmills was released. This video, which debuted on YouTube on July 31^st, 2006, was one of the earliest viral YouTube videos to mesmerized audiences across the world. As of 2009, it is still one of the most iconic videos of all time with over 46 million views.

“Evolution of Dance”

Judson Laipply’s “Evolution of Dance” was first put on YouTube in 2006 and became an overnight internet sensation reaching over 123 million viewers. One of the first comedy performances ever to go viral, the video features Laipply performing popular dance moves from the 1950s all the way to the present. Even now, it remains the single most watched video in the history of the web.

Our “Global Phenomenon” videos are:

“Filipino Prisoners doing Thriller”

and ”Korean Madness”

“Filipino Prisoners doing Thriller”

Featuring over 1500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Phillipines performing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video, this video became a surprise smash hit on YouTube. Conceived by Byron F. Garcia as an enjoyable exercise regimen for the prisoners, it has now been viewed over 30 million times throughout the globe and given the prisoners a great source of pride, proving the immense effect that YouTube has had on people and cultures worldwide. Here is a link to an earlier blog post written by Anna Brady Nuse comparing the Filipino Prison dances with Busby Berkeley and the Balinese Kecak.

“Korean Madness”

This hilarious video, which has now become a global phenomenon, was actually taken from a Korean TV show. It features two young girls singing karaoke, and from the looks of it, they are truly enjoying themselves!

Our final category this week is “Sponsors/Marketing” and our winning videos in this category are

“Where the hell is Matt” by Matt Harding

and The “T-Mobile Dance”

“Where the Hell is Matt?”

This video, which features a guy named Matt Harding performing a ridiculous and amusing dance at various locations around the world, began as a joke between friends. Over time, these videos of unexpected bursts of dance by a goofy man in exotic locations sparked a media frenzy that ultimately led to a sponsorship by Stride gum company. Stride has sponsored Matt’s last two excursions simply because they were amused by his ideas, however by associating themselves with a fun-loving guy who is a YouTube sensation, they have craftily created a more progressive brand image.

“T-Mobile Dance”

This video, which documents a brilliant publicity stunt used to promote T-Mobile, was filmed in a crowded London train station in the middle of the day. This seemingly spontaneous yet choreographically synchronized dance was a viral hit, and since then many other brands have posed similar media marketing stunts, such as the Belgian TV company’s “Sound of Music” in Central Station in Antwerp, which was our “Choreographed” videodance contest winner on June 12th.

For further intellectual discussion about these videos or any of our previous themes, please click here: Movement Media’s Weekly Online Video Dance Contest

As always, we appreciate your comments and feedback about the contest winners! We’ll be back in September. In the meantime, please submit your videos to our new UMove Videodance Festival, taking place Oct 1-31, 2009 on the web and at live screenings around the world! Deadline AUG 15Th.

This Week’s Videodance Contest – Classroom or Stage

Thank you to everyone who submitted or nominated a work for this week’s theme of “Classroom or Stage.” Keep in mind, this contest will be happening every week for the remainder of the summer. If you haven’t had a chance to participate yet, there will be plenty of more chances for you to do so. Our next theme is “Private or Public.” All submissions and nominations are due by July 14th, and the contest winners will be announced on July 17th. Please scroll to the bottom of this post for more information on how to submit.

This week’s winning videos are:

“Fabric of Being” by David Wasserman representing our stage category

And

“Aldana” by Jordi Martin representing our classroom category

Classroom or Stage

For the theme “Classroom or Stage,” we imagined that one term was about how we learn and explore movement, and the other was about the execution of already learned and rehearsed movement. As we watched various videos though, the distinctions became a little less clear.  If a video  is of a dance being performed for an audience, but it is still in its experimental stages, does it fall into the category of stage or classroom? What about a piece that has been completed, but was created solely for the purpose of teaching it to others? Ultimately, we chose two videos that were similar in essence but extremely different in intention and execution.

Stage: “Fabric of Being”

This David Wasserman’s “Fabric of Being” is a representation of stage because it shows the final product of a creative process. It takes also place on a stage in a frontal format, as if to be performed before an audience. Not only is the choreography set, but the piece is also filmed in a very specific way in order to portray the artist’s vision. By incorporating beautiful choreography with unique camera work, Wasserman captivates the audience and invites them to interpret the work in their own way. The underlying concept of “no two snowflakes are alike,” provides the foundation for the piece. Wasserman explains that the piece actually delves into the depths of humanity through the personification of a snowflake. Even though the same dancer is performing the same choreography to the same music in each of the two layered wide shots, when placed side by side it is evident that the movements are not identical. Although at times the movements seem to sync up, when you look closely it is clear that the movements in one shot are drawn out slightly longer than they are in its counterpart. It is rare for a piece to work well both as a stage and filmic piece, but this work accomplishes just that with a unique and strong message.

More info on David Wasserman: www.WorldWideWass.com

Classroom: “Aldana”

Similarly to “Fabric of Being,” Jordi Martin’s “Aldana” features two dancers executing the same choreography. Unlike “Fabric of Being”, “Aldana” is not a finished and polished work. At this stage in the creative process, the choreography does not necessarily have a set purpose, but rather is an exploratory experimentation with movements, and is a great illustration of how dancers learn. A major part of a dancer’s learning process involves watching and mimicking movements. In this video the two dancers start out seeming to be in perfect sync, but as the phrase progresses, we see that the woman is following the man, and he is showing her the movements. Later in the learning process, when the movements have been refined, the dancer is able to embody the choreography and make the movements their own. “Aldana” captures the moments of new choreography being set on a dancer’s body, and the learning process that this involves.

More info on Jordi Martin: http://www.proyectocajmir.com

Please leave us a comment, and let us know what you think about classroom and stage videos, this week’s winners, and anything else you’d like to share!

Next Week’s Theme for Movement Media’s Online Video Dance Contest:

Theme: Private or Public
Submissions are due by Tuesday July 14th.
Winners will be announced on Move the Frame on Friday July 17th.
With Facebook, Twitter and social media all the rage, privacy is a hot button topic these days. Tons of people are capturing private dances on video and posting them on Youtube for public consumption. What are your thoughts on private and public, and how has his played out in your work?

Please submit or nominate a video for one of these categories and tell us how you interpreted this theme.

HOW TO SUBMIT

• 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 only one of the weekly themes.
• Send the link of the video to Movement Media
• 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 UMOVE, Movement Media’s Online Dance Film Festival in October 2009.

UP-COMING THEMES FOR JULY:

Week four in July: Pop Dance Phenomenon
Submissions due by July 21st. Weekly Contest winners will be announced on July 24th.

The final week of July will be guest curated by Doug Fox of Greatdance.com.

Top Ten Vlogging Tips from Boris Willis

As you know, Boris Willis was our curator for our last Kinetic Cinema of the season. The subject of his evening was dance vlogs: a video blog with dance.  As an experienced dance vlogger, Boris has many insights into the process of creating videos, performing for the camera, editing, and using the web to share his work online.  He has graciously offered some helpful information about making dance videos, and creating dance vlogs.  Check out his inspirational work and helpful tips below.

Capitol Spring 2 by Boris Willis

Boris writes:

Why should artists create a dance vlog? I believe the answer lies in the number of times we have to explain what we do and have little in our culture to point to as an example. We have an opportunity to reach out to the public to show and explain the process of what we do, why we do it and how we feel about it. Here are some tips for you to think about as you make your dance vlogs.

1. Have a vision
   Find a way to make videos that you feel express who you are and what you want to say as a dancer. That being said, don’t just turn on your camera and dance, find a way to make an interesting and exciting video. Look at commercials and other short videos as inspiration.
2. Vlogging is personal and performative
   Make your vlog about you because it is the one subject that you know more about than anyone else. Dance, talk about dance, talk about making dance while you are dancing, dance about making dance.
3. Understand how the web is used
   Just because you have twenty minutes of footage doesn’t mean you should post it all to your vlog. Generally speaking three minutes is the most someone will watch. In other words keep it short, a sixty second video is plenty. As you gain more skills you will be able to make longer videos compelling by the way you edit them. It is always better to leave them wanting more than to bore them. Make stuff that people want to see and make it short enough that they watch it all.
4. Edit
   Learn how to use the tools of video editing. There are free editing tools that come with your computer operating system, Window’s Movie Maker for Window and iMove for the Mac OS. If you want to be able to do more sophisticated editing you can get Final Cut Express for the Mac and Premiere Pro Elements for the PC. For professional level editing you will need something like Premier Pro CS 4 for the PC and Final Cut 6 for the Mac. The great thing about video is that you can take the time to get it right and make your content compelling. However, the most important edit you make is at the end of your video, use a black out when the video is over and put your credits at the end of each video without a blackout so the credits are the last thing your audience sees. That way if your video gets distributed around the web everyone will know its yours.
5. Get the best camera you can afford
   You never know what will become of your work it is always best to get the highest quality video of your original work. When you put it on the web it will get compressed and lose quality but that is what we expect from the web. Having a high quality version for showing offline is a very good idea. I also recommend that you use a camera that records to video tape so that you have a backup. I always shoot in HDV but down-convert to SD to save disk space then compress it to the Quicktime format which eventually gets converted to flash.
6. Find a video host that you like
   I have been in debates about whether it is better to put your videos on Vimeo or YouTube or Blip.tv. There is no reason not to try all three and of any number of others. Just find one that you like. If image quality is what is most important then Vimeo is for you. If ease of distribution is what is most important then Blip.tv is for you. If getting your videos seen by a large number of people then YouTube is the way to go. There are pro’s and con’s for all three services and I use all three and others as well. Once you decided on a host for your videos choose a host for your blog. Blogger and WordPress are two popular services that give you a variety of tools to enhance your content.
7. Be Consistent
   Follow your vision, update on a regular basis, make videos in manageable viewing times for your audience. You are not going to make money from advertising on your vlog but you can use your vlog as a tool to get work by showcasing your skills as a performer, choreographer, editor and artist. Let your followers know what you are up to especially when you are taking a break. People want to know that when they go to your blog there is regularly new content there that they want to see. Your dance vlog should be fun and informative. You should do it because you enjoy it.
8. Say hello
   How do you get people to follow your vlog? Email your friends, comment on other people’s vlogs, tell people you meet, get cards made. You can get free cards online from Vista Print.
9. Music
   Don’t use copy-written music. Find a musician among your friends or on the web that will let you use their music in exchange for some cross promotion. You can find plenty of music at this url http://www.archive.org/index.php Learn about Creative Commons use and credit the musicians for their work.
10. Describe the videos you make
    Write a description of the videos you post and use tags to help yourself and others find them. It is time consuming at first to describe your work but the value in doing so cannot be underestimated. Describe what you are doing in the video, give the location, who is in the video, when it was done and what the video is about.

-Boris Willis

danceaday.com

Final Kinetic Cinema of the Season!!!

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

Announcing Movement Media’s Weekly Online Videodance Contest on Move the Frame blog

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!

Notes from the March 25th Artist Salon: Dance for Web-an Emerging Genre

(“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

A.O.’s Production Blog: Business model/SIDE project.

So before we get into the pre-production goodness, there is, in the true fashion of all things dance, an update that affects, well, everything. To start, my soloist dancer Julia has a major neck injury/illness, and won’t be able to move for a while (probably somewhere around three weeks).  So that’s something. Additionally (perhaps for the best) a sudden rain/snow leek at the production co’s office directly on top of my work station and computer put us behind a few days (although, wouldn’t you know it, that little G4 took the water like a pro, and is back up and running!).

So there’s that.  However, while i can’t fascinate you with all the exciting post-production details that we’ve yet to discuss at our yet-to-be meeting, i can take this post to tell you about the general structure for this piece, and the side project that’s developed off of it.

Richert Schnorr’s Pop/Rock/Porn/Dance Video blog!

I just want to take a moment to crush on Richert Schnorr’s amazing dance videos that look so damn good on his video blog, REGULARMOTION. Take a look and you’ll see what I’m saying.

He just posted an online version of his fabulous videodance series “GRAPHIC.GLORY” that is also for sale as a DVD (Track 2 is shown above). He mentioned that his concept is to make great albums, like pop music albums but with dance. The result is so sexy, fun, and tasty you just can’t get enough. Rock on Richert! We love you!!!