July 12, 2007

"Slow Dancing" Internet Videos Don't Do David Michalek's Project Justice

After a two-day delay, photographer David Michalek's "Slow Dancing" installation opens tonight at Lincoln Center. This exhibit consists of stunning 40-feet high video projections featuring a roster of internationally known dancers. Each super-high-definition video, which lasts about 10 minutes, is a very slowed down version of a 5-second movement sequence performed by each dancer. So you get to see the most minute details as a dancer transitions from one move to the next.

While I thought seeing the actual videos that Michalek produced was a stunning experience (see my earlier post), the online promotional videos that have so far been made available are real let downs. The beauty of "Slow Dancing" is that yet get a very concrete sense and detailed understanding of how dancers make movement happen -- and until this project, I don't think this was really possible given the speed at which dancers move. The three elements of this exhibit that give viewers these new insights are the use of very high-definition video, the slow speed of the playback and the large size of the video images.

All three of these elements are lost with the available online videos.

Here's a screen shot of the two videos now available on the "Slow Dancing" site of Herman Cornejo and Wendy Whelan - click for larger image:

I found no value in watching either of the two above videos. You get none of the insight or sense of wonder that you get - or, at least, that I got - compared to seeing the real thing. The detail is just not accessible with such a small video frame. And why is the Wendy Whelan video so short?

And the New York Times has a video of Herman Cornejo from this project - click for larger image:

The NY Times screen shot is especially grainy because I took the frame grab in full-screen mode. But even in the default screen size, the NY Times video is even less helpful than the two above videos.

Here's my question: Why would a project devoted to the idea of making the beauty of movement accessible to the naked eye through high-definition video do such a poor job of delivering this video experience online?

There are a number of possibilities:

- From a technical standpoint, maybe they thought it was not worth the effort of uploading very large high-definition videos that users would have to download to watch on their computers or transfer to a hi-definition TV.

- From a marketing perspective, they may have wanted to provide only a glimpse of what this project was about in order to motivate lots of people to see the actual Lincoln Center installation and future exhibits. Or,

- They might not have put much thought into how they would use online video in the first place.

From my perspective, I think that they missed a golden opportunity. I would have made the videos of 2-4 dancers available in many different formats - including top quality high-definition formats that would dazzle viewers when watched on a Hi-Def TV. I would have posted these videos on popular sites such as YouTube (obviously lower-quality versions) as well as on emerging hi-def video hosting sites. I would also have encouraged Apple TV owners to download these videos for viewing on their wide-screen TVs. Finally, I would have targeted online technology publications and given them embedable videos so that they could feature videos on their site and write behind-the-scenes articles about the technology used for this project.

The end result would be more people would come to see these exhibits live and when the producers started to sell a HD-DVD or Blue-Ray versions of this project, a large audience would be ready to buy them.

And in terms of the overall connection that the general public has with dance - or does not have with dance - a better presentation of this material online would serve as a fun and engaging way for people to think about the experience of movement in new ways.

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