Movement Media’s Fall Calendar and Programs

Movement Media is happy to announce:

• Kinetic Cinema Film Screenings each Month in 2009
• UMOVE Festival Screening & Launch Party on October 4th
• Workshops and Webinars on Filming Dance in 2009
• Kinetic Cinema Screenings and Workshops at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

CALENDAR of Events in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9th (Wednesday) at 7:00 7:30pm – Kinetic Cinema

“Kill the Ego” curated by Lisa Niedermeyer – Tickets $10

Location: The TANK, 354 West 45th Street, NYC  (btw 8th/9th Avenue)

Directions to The TANK.

© 2008-2009 Soundwalk, Rostarr & Label Dalbin - Photo by Ron Patane

Join us for the kick off of an exciting new season of Kinetic Cinema in which choreographer, performer, and videographer Lisa Niedermeyer curates an evening that explores a kinetic portrayal of New York City.  Conceived originally as a sound collage by Stephan Crasneanscki and Doug Winningham of the new media firm Soundwalk, ‘Kill The Ego’ draws on a decade’s worth of New York City field recordings “voices of pimps and engineers, poets and dominatrixs, visionaries and children, hope and sorrow.”

© 2008-2009 Soundwalk, Rostarr & Label Dalbin - Photo by Atsushi Nishijima

Fueled by this sound,   underground visual artist Rostarr experiments with gravity, momentum, torque and combinations of all three (break dancing on his canvases) as directors Jim Helton and Ron Patane bring to cinematic life Soundwalk’s original audio collage and Rostarr’s visual work, culminating in a uniquely kinetic representation of New York City.

© 2008-2009 Soundwalk, Rostarr & Label Dalbin - Photo by Atsushi Nishijima

View the Trailer
Soundwalk’s website

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SEPTEMBER 24th (Thursday) 1:00-2:00pm (EST) – Webinar on ‘How to Make a Great Dance Promo Video’

DanceBrazil - Promo reel by Reels4Artists

Videographer and founder of the production company Reels4Artists, Gerrit Vooren will present a live online seminar, or ‘webinar ‘ on how to produce a great promo video. Learn how to best frame and edit your work to help you acquire bookings, funding, and audience support. This one hour webinar will take place in real time, so that you have ample time to ask questions and get feedback from Gerrit.

Have a scheduling conflict? No worries, all registrants will have access to a recorded transcript of the webinar to view and listen to anytime.

Registration is limited to 50 ppl. Please contact: movementmedia@pentacle.org to register. Workshop fee $18 USD.

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OCTOBER 4th (Sunday) 7:30 & 9:30pm – The First Annual UMOVE Online Videodance Festival Screening and Launch Party.

As the First Annual UMove Videodance Festival kicks off online, join us to celebrate the launch with a live screening and party in New York City. Featuring a selection of cutting edge digital animations, 60 sec shorts, surprising combinations of dance and technology, and low budget wonders that represent the best of Youtube. Multimedia performances will entertain and inspire, and drinks and popcorn will flow!

Tickets -$40 Donation with Reserved Seating or $5 At the Door-Very Limited Seating.

To reserve a seat with a $40 donation, please go to our donate now page on our website or contact us at movementmedia@pentacle.org.

Location: The Tank, 354 West 45th Street (btw 8th/9th Avenue) . Directions to The TANK.

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OCTOBER 22nd (Thursday) 7:00pm – Kinetic Cinema

Title:   “Choreographic Portraits on Film” by Victoria Marks.

Tickets- $10 (at the door)

'Outside In on Mirror'-photo by Mark Lewis

Victoria explores ‘what moves us’ versus the specific ‘moves a dancer makes’…and the way in which this concept can be captured by the camera.  For Kinetic Cinema, Victoria showcases works which capture what she terms ‘Choreographic Portraiture’, and she offers 2 separate workshops in NYC and Philadelphia to teach others how to work with the camera to capture more intimate aspects of dance on film.

Location: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (at the corner of Rivington).  Directions to University Settlement.

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OCTOBER 23rd (Friday) 10:00am-2:00pm - Workshop on Filming Dance.

Victoria Marks and dancers

Choreographer and award-winning dance film-maker Victoria Marks will teach a movement-based workshop on how to capture the essence of the dancer on film.

Open to dance and film professionals and students, registration is limited to 20 ppl. Please contact: movementmedia@pentacle.org to register. Workshop fee $35.00.

Location: HT Chen Dance Center, 8 East 1st Street, (btw Bowery & 2nd Avenue).  Directions to HT Chen Dance Center.

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NOVEMBER 11th (Wednesday) 7:30pm – Kinetic Cinema

Amy Greenfield -Flesh into Night

Cinedance pioneer Amy Greenfield presents poetic and alluring dance films.

Tickets – $10 (at the door)

Location: The Tank, 354 West 45th Street (btw 8th/9th Avenue) . Directions to The TANK.

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DECEMBER 9th (Wednesday) 7:30 pm – Kinetic Cinema

Dancer-Carlton Ward, Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects

Choreographer and dance-filmmaker Jody Oberfelder presents: The Phenomenon of Viral Dance Videos.

Tickets – $10 (at the door)

Location: The Tank, 354 West 45th Street (btw 8th/9th Avenue) . Directions to The TANK.

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CALENDAR of Events in Philadelphia

OCTOBER 21st (Wednesday) 6:00pm – Kinetic Cinema at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia

'Outside In Tango'-Photo by Mark Lewis

In conjunction with the ground-breaking Dance with Camera exhibition at the ICA, Victoria Mark’s curates a Kinetic Cinema screening in Philadelphia.  “Choreographic Portraits on Film”.

FREE

Location: the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Directions to the Institute of Contemporary Art.

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OCTOBER 24th (Saturday) 10:00am-5:00pm – Workshop on Filming Dance in Philadelphia.

Dance with Camera-ICA in Philadelphia

Victoria Marks is offering her workshop on filming dance a second time in Philadelphia.  Open to dance and film professionals and students, registration is limited to 20 ppl.

Please visit www.icaphila.org to register.  Workshop fee $25.00.

Location: The Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.  Directions to Institute of Contemporary Art.

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ABOUT MOVEMENT MEDIA

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

ABOUT KINETIC CINEMA

Kinetic Cinema is a co-presentation of The Tank and Pentacle’s Movement Media project.  This screening series explores the intersection of dance and the moving image.  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.

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.

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.

This Week’s Videodance Contest Winners for the Theme ‘Rehearsal or Performance’

by Mollie Shapiro

Although the first month of our Videodance Contest has come to an end, we have a whole new crop of themes for the month of July. Our next theme is “Classroom or Stage.” All submissions and nominations are due by July 7th, and the contest winners will be announced on July 10th. Please scroll to the bottom of this post for more information on how to submit.

The winning videos for this week’s Videodance Contest for the theme “Rehearsal or Performance” are:

“Chunky Move’s Mortal Engine” by Chunky Move representing our performance category

There is an issue with the YouTube embeddable player, so please go to this link to watch “Mortal Coil”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS1WALmBqUw

And

“One on One” by Caleb Custer for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s Project 52

Rehearsal or Performance

When watching a performance, it is easy to become so wrapped up in a piece that you lose sight of the meticulous rehearsal process behind the polished execution. This week’s theme is an examination of the dichotomy between rehearsal and performance. While strongly interconnected, the differences between these two stages in the creative process are immense. Rehearsals often function as laboratories to experiment with movement material, and then hone in on the composition and execution of the movements. Once a piece reaches the performance stage, the focus shifts to how it looks to outside viewers (the audience). At this point visual effects such as lighting, costumes, and sets are incorporated, to create a seamless magical experience for the viewer.

Performance: Chunky Move’s “Mortal Engine”

“Mortal Engine” by the iconoclastic Australian dance company, Chunky Move (http://chunkymove.com/), is unique in that it incorporates choreography and animated visual effects to create a completely new hybrid form: an “intermedia” performance. The video of the performance is very effective at capturing the magic of this mingling of media and live performance, giving us a great sense of what it was like to see it in the theater. When watching this piece, it’s hard to fathom how it was made. The performance is utterly captivating and fascinating to watch. The technology behind the piece is a program called Calypso, that uses real-time generated graphics to accompany each dancer’s movements. To create the incredible effects shown on the stage, a projector shoots onto the floor, next to an infrared camera, which is next to infrared lights. Nick Roux, the operator for another performance by Chunky Move using this technology entitled “Glow,” explains that the camera, which is lined up exactly with the image of the projector, tracks the movement of the dancer and sends it to a computer running the program Calypso. The operator then responds to the choreography through a series of cues to create the stunning visual effects that move in time with the dancers. The sophistication of technology for real-time performance has made giant advances in recent years. Chunky Move has utilized these new technologies to great effect, making work that not only breaks technological barriers, but is also artistically innovative.

Rehearsal: “One on One” by Caleb Custer for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s Project 52
Our winning rehearsal video, “One on One” is part of Project 52, a series of one-minute videos being posted each week for an entire year by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (http://www.cedarlakedance.com/). Each video is intended to give audiences a window into the company’s rehearsal process and give them information about the new pieces they are working on. “One on One” is about the exploratory zone of the rehearsal process in which the dancer must find the specific intention behind each movement in order to execute it with precision. In this video the rehearsal director explains that you cannot expect a dancer to fully absorb the information or grasp the concept of each movement after one rehearsal. Time must be spent one on one with the dancer in order to give the important information necessary to fully comprehend the movements. The rigorous concentration required for each movement is what makes rehearsing dance such a complex and extensive process.

Project 52 is a great example of how a dance company can continue to engage audiences even when they are off-stage. By showing the vigorous work that goes into each polished performance, audiences gain new appreciation for what they see, and are more informed about the piece. Dance is one of the most misunderstood art forms. A common question from audiences after seeing a modern dance performance is, What was that supposed to be about? An online rehearsal video series like Cedar Lake’s Project 52 can help audiences feel more clued into the performance they are watching, and give them a much richer and more meaningful experience.

Please leave us a comment, and let us know what you think about rehearsal and performance 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: Classroom or Stage

Submissions are due by Tuesday July 7th.

Winners will be announced on Move the Frame on Friday July 10th.

Classroom could mean training videos, how-to videos, dance teachers and students, field study, or any other learning environment. Stage could mean performance, showing before an audience (of any size), the completion of a course of study, or any other final stage of a creative/learning process.

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 (information and submission guidelines to be announced in early July).

UP-COMING THEMES FOR JULY:

Week three: Private or Public
Submissions due by July 14th. Weekly Contest winners will be announced on July 17th.

Week four: 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.

Program Notes from Boris Willis’ curated Kinetic Cinema

We wanted to provide you with the program notes and videos that Boris Willis presented at Kinetic Cinema, on June 10th at Chez Buskwick.  Since his program was about dance vlogging, all the videos he showed are available online, which we have provided the links to. Coincidentally, Willis organized his videos along the theme of amateur/professional, fitting perfectly with our first Weekly Videodance Contest.

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…

Creating a Lexicon for Screendance

by Anna Brady Nuse

(re)Action by Victoria Murphy

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

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

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

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

Screendance Venn Diagram by Karen Pearlman

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

The Radiant Movement Presents a Dance Film Night in Queens

Kinetic Cinema has company! A new monthly dance film series has started in Queens curated by Alexx Shilling at her dance/yoga/Pilates studio in Long Island City, The Radiant Movement. The Dance Film Nights happen on the last Sunday of each month. This Sunday, March 29th you can see a great documentary about the “mother” of experimental dance film, Maya Deren as well as shorts by acclaimed choreographer/performer Maureen Fleming.

Maya Deren

By donation, popcorn will be served!

Sunday March 29 at 6pm
at the Radiant Movement

Located in the Arris Lofts building at

27-28 Thomson Ave. #248

Just 5 minutes from Manhattan!

E, V to 23rd-Ely; G, 7 to Court Square

Please RSVP to secure your spot: info@RadiantPilates.com or 917.696.0648

Well it’s lovely to meet you too. (Sarah A.O. joins Move the Frame)

Sarah A.O. Rosner with The A. O. Movement Collective

Hello there!

I’m Sarah A.O. – Anna has been kind enough to invite me to blog on Move the Frame on a regular basis. So, yes, i’m thrilled to be here!  I guess you could say i’m a dance blogger. You could also say that i’m a choreographer, and dancefilm-maker, as well as newmedia lover/developer.  You could also say that I am a lumberjack, but you, my friend, would be wrong on that last one.  My company, the A.O. Movement Collective, is a contemporary dance co. based in NY, in love with and dabbling in many things: the aesthetics of mess, epic work, new media programs, and dancefilm being some of them.  My blog, the Urgent Artist, is a digital space for some of those ideas and questions, as well as a space for anyone who “lives by their art” to throw down some good old fashioned knowledge, questions, or heartaches. I also work as a producer/editor for reels4artists, a video production company for the arts, and as an artist services intern at Dance Theater Workshop.   But enough about all that.

Since Anna approached me about writing for her blog, i’ve been thinking about how to structure my time and space here. Do i blog theory, or about performances and screenings, or maybe turn my attention to the economics of dancefilm versus performance? I find them all vast and interesting, but luckily there’s a fairly easy answer already in place.