October 1, 2007

What's My Frame?

Matt Gough replied to my call to action in "What's in a Name?" and posted a couple responses on his tumblr, Quodlibet: here and here.

He asks: so i'm wondering how anna frames her work ... why the preference for video dance, and what is her genre?

Well, as my blog is aptly titled, my frame moves around a lot. I started out an experimentalist. I was just excited by what I could do with a camera that I couldn't do with live choreography. I was mostly influenced by Maya Deren, and her extensive experimentation with choreography for the camera. My definitions of dance and choreography were always quite wide, but having a camera to look through blew them open even further.  I could capture movement wherever I found it and through editing I could shape it anyway I chose. The movement didn't need to be executed by humans. I could create viewable dances literally out of anything, and in fact my first two videodances were edited from footage of trash found on the streets of Brooklyn.







< "Trash Processional"







Then I just wanted to experiment with the actual frame of the camera's eye, forgetting about editing for a moment. I was interested in choreographing long shots where the movement outside the frame was just as important as the movement in the frame. During this time I made the opening credit sequence for "Move the Frame" the TV show which was one long pull back shot through a row of dancers whose hands and bodies framed the moving shot. I also made "Untitled States of America," a solo in which the camera is sitting on the ground for most of the piece, and I choreographed the dance based on what the camera could/couldn't see of me.







< "Move the Frame" opening credits








Now I've come around to being more interested in narratives and character development. My two most recent projects have been about couples and the dynamics between them and their inner/outer selves. I've also been exploring film styles such as silent film physical comedies, and the poetic/iconic styles of 60's Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajonov and American Independent Jim Jarmusch.




< "Fünf 'n' Twist"












So what's my genre? Right now I would say I probably still fall under experimental, but stylistically it's experimental narrative, or non-linear storytelling. However if I'm speaking to someone who has never seen my work, I also need to preface my description by saying that it is videodance. If I don't say this then I feel like the most important aspect of my work is not being expressed which is that it is a form of media coming from a kinetic sensibility.

I like "videodance" as a name because it sounds both current and of the future. It fuses both the way people are already thinking about media with the older art form of dance, and radically shifts one's notion of dance from performance art to media art. Videos are ubiquitous right now and becoming more so.  We know what a music video is, most feature films are shot on video, tv is video, everyone has a camcorder or has used one. Video is exploding on the internet with Youtube, mash-ups, vlogs & blogs, and a torrent of user-generated content.  I think that video is also a more immediate and interactive media art and this echoes the experiential/physical aspects of dance.

Matt made the great observation: "i think the difference here is that anna is thinking in terms of genres and I am thinking in terms of art movements." I think this is true, but I'm frequently confusing the two myself. I'm sure that they often overlap, but I would love to hear what others think about this. Are we talking about a genre or an art movement here? I'll post my thoughts soon...
Posted by Anna Brady Nuse on October 1, 2007 9:00 AM

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