Anna, first of all, from what I've read so far you are a great addition to Great Dance.. welcome to blogging!

This must be the most blogged about dance video in the history of youtube. Many people (myself included) have shared and commented about it on their blog, but this is the most insightful commentary I have seen yet. You have really examined all aspects of it.

I thought about the fascist angle of it as well, but then I read a BBC article about it and the inmates they interviewed all seemed really proud that they had been a part of something so successful. They were in awe of their fame and satisfied that so many people had been interested and amazed by their dancing.

Interesting you should bring up that scene from Baraka... do you know anything about it? I was mesmerized by it when I saw the movie.

Finally, nice way to tie it all together with the Busby Berkeley example. It's incredible how even the smallest of movements, when combined in sheer quantity can create something spectacular. The Berkely piece certainly didn't require a great deal of talent, but the final effect is pretty over the top and spectacular. I felt the same when I saw the inmates dance, particularly with the algorithm dance.

Maria,

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad I was able to still add something new to the discussion around this huge videodance phenomenon!

The scene from Baraka is a beautifully staged depiction of kecak, the Balinese Monkey Chant. This is a traditional dramatic rendition of the Hindu epic myth: the Ramayana. The Monkey Chant specifically deals with the part of the story in which Hanuman, the monkey god, rounds up his monkey army and aids Rama in rescuing his wife Sita from the evil King Ravana. It's a great story and the way it is told in the Monkey Chant is with a huge group of men (the monkeys) sitting in a circle chanting and elaborately dressed dancers representing the main characters of the story dancing out the narrative in the middle of the circle (the Baraka scene doesn't show this). At the end of the chant there is a great battle between Hanuman's monkey army and Ravana's demon army. You can see this acted out in the Baraka clip when half the men lie back in defeat and the other half stand up and chant waving their arms and hands. The chanting itself is really really hard. It's all interlocking poly-rhythms that are constantly changing. You can see in this clip that there is a leader who cues the group when to change (he is the older man with the white mark on his forehead). There are also chanters who just keep the tempo with their voices and this keeps everyone together as well.

It's so much fun, and I highly recommend checking out any Balinese music and dance performances. All their music and dance is based on various interlocking rhythms that come together through individual parts merging into one.

I don't know very much about Philippino performing arts, however I'm pretty sure that they are similar in their compositional structures to Indonesian forms. By connecting the Monkey Chant with the Cebu prison dances I was trying to show that there is a very old and established tradition of group arts in Southeast Asia which is perhaps why all those prisoners were willing and able to make these giant unison dance spectacles. Can you imagine this happening in an American prison?

As for Busby, I just love his visions (even if one could argue they're sexist in their objectification of women). His choreographic career started in the army when he was a drill sargent, and came with all these elaborate marching drills. After the war (I guess WWI?) he ended up in Hollywood and started creating elaborate marching drills on blonde women! The rest is history. He also invented some ground-breaking techniques for shooting dance. I'll get into all his innovations in another post.

Thanks for following the dots with me, it was fun to put all those clips together!