Dance Cinema 2020 Curatorial Premiere
Published: March 2020. By Melissa Ramos Curator of Dance Cinema
“I feel strongly that film is related more closely to dance than any other form because, like dance, it is conveyed in time.” [1] -Maya Deren
In screendance the dancer and the camera are inextricably intertwined, the camera is merely a recording device and more to serve as a stage, a dancer, and an audience - simultaneously. Choreography is designed for the lens, with movements formulated by the camera’s fragmented narrative framing. Editing compresses time and spaces, making choreography impossible in real-time, and transforming the dancer. The visual movement language in screendance is always shifting; never absolute, and evolving with every artistic personal anecdote. Against the backdrop of the histories of cinema and contemporary art, meaning and historical significance come not solely from its relation to dance, but also from its cross-referencing of social & political context.
Dance Cinema focuses on screendance in which the viewer is empowered to participate with the moving body. The dancer transits with the mechanics of cinema; departing and arriving ephemeral space for passengers to take voyage. Travel is one of the ways in which the barrier between interior and exterior is broken, blurring the confines of time and space. Cinema’s moving image makes space between geography and the body; it is about the emotional passage. Without you knowing, your body is orienting itself with the narrative, responding to what you absorb subconsciously, and traversing viscerally a personal and yet social psycho-geography. Watching collectively in a group and silently dancing together.
“..watching the screen all together is like a communal dance” [2] -Pipilotti Rist
The curatorial screendance works resonates themes of narrative, poetic temporal structures, metaphor and abstraction. The works appear to personify a process based on four common threads:
Body: is the kinetic structure and most expressive physical mechanics for narrative to unfold in multiple layers. The plethora of choice on which to compose the camera in relation to the body and time narrative is most crucial. The interplay of absence and presence of the body on screen.
Essence: is the complex system for expressing the characteristics of the moving body. It could be found in close-ups or in-between elements.
Shape: involves the body’s movement within the geography, and the patterns and pathways created in space. Elements from nature and light affects the shape of the contours.
Space: is created with a range of seamless editing techniques, jump-cuts, transitions, or long single-takes. The spatial environment is achieved by the rhythmic joining of superimposed frames, and lastly the velocity and ease influence the perception of bodies in space.
1. Maya Deren, “Film in Progress. Thematic Statement”, Film Culture 39 (Winter 1965)
2. Pipilotti Rist, Artist Interview. Broken Screen (2001)
2. Pipilotti Rist, Artist Interview. Broken Screen (2001)