May 29, 2008

Worst of the Best at Kinetic Cinema June 2nd

Don't miss the last Kinetic Cinema before we break for the summer!

"Staying Alive" dir. Sylvester Stallone, "Showgirls" dir. Paul Verhoeven

On Monday June 2nd, choreographer and dance filmmaker Kriota Willberg will host The Worst of the Best, a tour of inspiringly bad dance films from the early 1900's to the present. Truly awful dance is powerful art.  We react strongly to it as an audience, we relate our horrible experiences to our friends and warn them away from it, we laugh, we seethe, we remember it far longer than "good" dance, and possibly longer than "great" dance.   Join us for film and discussion as we chase that ethereal muse, Badness, through the work of generations of dance film artists.

Kinetic Cinema
Monday June 2nd, 7:30pm
$5 Admission (buy tix at the door)

@ Collective:Unconscious 
279 Church Street (just south of White Street)
New York, NY 10013
Trains: 1 to Franklin; A, C, E to Canal
http://weird.org/films.htm
212.254.5277
MORE INFO: www.movetheframe.com
 

Kinetic Cinema at Collective:Unconscious explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month curator Anna Brady Nuse invites a special guest from the dance community to share the films and videos that have inspired or moved them. These could be films 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, and filmmakers. In the fall upcoming guests will include Elizabeth Zimmer (Oct 5th),  Maya Ciarrocchi (Nov 3rd), and new films by Anna Brady Nuse & friends (Dec 1st).

KRIOTA WILLBERG has danced and choreographed in Germany, Chicago, and New York. In addition to working with her company, Dura Mater, Willberg choreographs for commercial, theatrical, and other dance productions. Dance choreography for film includes The Bentfootes  (dir. K. Willberg and Todd Alcott), Grasshopper  (dir. Todd Alcott), Dreamgirl (dir. Robbie Busch), and On The Road With Judas (dir. JJ Lask). She has passed her basic proficiency tests in Single Sword and Broadsword techniques from the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) and occasionally includes fight choreography in her own work and for others. Her article on dance and stage combat was published in the SAFD magazine, The Fightmaster. Her ballerina tattoo was featured in Dance Magazine.

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May 24, 2008

FrameWorks and Frame Dances in DUMBO

Continuing with news from the New York videodance scene, I'm happy to share some exciting programs happening at two new spaces in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood: Galapagos Art Space and Music-Theatre Group.

FRAMEWORKS
Galapagos Art Space will be moving this summer from their original home on North 6th Street in Williamsburg to the space formerly known as "The Stable" in DUMBO. This will place them in proximity to the prestigious St. Ann's Warehouse, and in alliance with BAM and other high class Brooklyn cultural institutions. I was sad to hear the old place was going, with its placid reflecting pool and scrappy backroom where I hosted and witnessed many a screening and performance, but my sadness quickly dissipated when I learned of their plans to have a new dance film screening series called FRAMEWORKS at their new venue. This series will be curated by a young dancer/filmmaker/puppeteer Michael Bodel, who is dedicated to showing current dance films that are creative, challenging, and boundary-defying regardless of budget size and professional polish. A particular focus, especially for the first screening on June 28th, later this summer, will be work by NYC-based artists. The current call for NYC artists' submissions is June 1st, and then Work from all artists will be considered on a rolling basis after that. For more information, and to download an application click here.

FRAME DANCES
The second event is a special series of 8 workshop performances by Susan Marshall & Company May 28 - June 1, 2008 to inaugurate the opening of Music-Theatre Group's new performing space in DUMBO. The company will be performing FRAME DANCES, a brand-new performance installation created by Susan Marshall with music by Peter Whitehead and live video. Each FRAME DANCE will be captured on video in live time, in full view, and the different perspectives will be presented side by side with the live dances.  Audiences become part of the work as they move freely through the space, making choices about how they view the various pieces. Composer Peter Whitehead has created a series of layered scores for this installation, which he will perform live.

Music-Theatre Group is located at 10 Jay Street in DUMBO.  This brand new workshop and performance space will serve as a platform to stimulate and advance the Group's work, foster artistic exchange and community, and allow works-in-progress to be shared with the public on a regular basis.

DATES AND DETAILS
Wednesday, May 28, 6:30pm - Benefit Performance
Thursday, May 29, 6:30pm & 9:30pm
Friday, May 30, 6:30pm & 9:30pm
Saturday, May 31, 3pm & 6:30pm
Sunday, June 1, 3pm
 

Tickets: $15, available through Smart-Tix. 
Call 212.868.4444 or visit www.smarttix.com.

Free Shuttle Bus Service from Union Square to 10 Jay Street for select performances.  Call Music-Theatre Group at 212.366.2560, ext. 22 212-366-5260 x22 for details.

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May 22, 2008

New NYC Videodance Artists and Events

There is a well-spring of videodance activity bubbling up in New York City recently. It seems like every day I see or hear of a new artist or event happening. In the next few posts I'll give a run down of the latest news, and will share more in the coming weeks.



NYC Dance Artists in Kinetic Cinema
First, a report of the Kinetic Cinema screening that happened on May 5th, curated by Levi Gonzalez. This screening was eye-opening for me, because I didn't realize there were so many choreographers in my midst that are working in video so extensively now. The evening included videos by Sarah White, Melanie Maar, Theo Angell, Yasuko Yokoshi, Hedia Maron, and ChameckiLerner.
Sarah White's "Interference" is an experimental study on perspective showing two people moving at the junction of a wall. Sometimes the camera is upside down, making it look like the duet is on the ceiling, other times it is right side up and superimposed with the upside down image to create a quartet. The piece has a very consistent and almost relentless quality: the only sound is the constant drip of water, the image is grainy and blown out, and the space gritty. I liked the feeling of the piece, but it was a little long and rambling for a sit down screening. It could probably work well in an installation setting.

Melanie Maar's "Lower" is a video adaptation by filmmaker Eric Breitbart of a live solo piece she performs. The solo is about a rare psychosomatic brain disorder that makes movement disjointed and uncontrollable. For the video, Breitbart decided to depict Maar as the silent film Vamp, Theda Bara (see picture). The combination of the severe black & white Theda Bara character with Maar's quirky and spastic movement was surprisingly poignant and emotional.

Theo Angell's video "Piscean Anomalite" was inspired by mutant and deformed fish he saw while on an artistic retreat in the wilderness. The resulting film is beautifully constructed with haunting Native American chanting, images of rushing water, and disturbing shots of the mutant fish superimposed over moving human bodies. It was eery but cool...

Yasuko Yokoshi showed a 20 min documentary of her latest performance project "Reframe the Framework DDD", which was made and shot over two years with nine high school students from Brattleboro, VT and was recently performed at the Kitchen at the end of April. Now I really wish I had seen the performance, because the documentary was completely riveting. Yokoshi set out to remake David Gordon's 1984 piece "Framework" and place it in the context of today from the perspective of the Vermont teens. Every moment of their process was documented on video, and the candid drama of their everyday lives, emotional upheavals, and sometimes life-threatening concerns felt heart-breakingly real. Part of the emotional thrust of the piece comes from the self-consciousness of the participants. The strange set of circumstances that brought a downtown experimental dance artist from Japan to work with rural teens is not lost on the participants, in fact it's discussed openingly and thoroughly. At one point Yokoshi says to the girls "I'm not afraid to piss you off." And one of the girls asks Yokoshi "Why did you want to make this piece with us?" Over the course of the process everyone undergoes an amazing transformation of self-awareness and discovery, routing through pain and fear and coming out stronger and more mature in the end. This is a brilliant example of the positive aspects of experimentalism.

Hedia Maron's "Untitled" and "Dance Dance Dance" both looked like artifacts found in someone's attic. "Untitled" actually was found footage of a friend's mom performing with a dance company outdoors sometime in the '70's. The grainy 8mm film is silent, and seems like a strange flickering beacon from the past. "Dance Dance Dance" was shot by Maron in 2007 on 8mm black and white film, and depicts a modern club kid dancing in his dorm room in stocking feet. Again, the footage is messed up to look old and grainy, and in silence, making the familiar YouTube-esque scene look distant, like a strange relic from bygone days.

The final piece of the evening was Roseane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner's "Flying Lesson" made in conjunction with filmmaker Phil Harder. This piece was shown in January at the Dance on Camera Festival where it won the Jury Prize, and if you have seen it you will understand why it deserves major props. The film has a simple plot, two women show you how to fly, but the way to do it is extremely difficult. All you need is a still camera, and very strong legs, because you will need to jump about 10,000 times and take a picture at the top of each jump. Then you go to an editing studio and put all the picture frames together to make them animated (film rate is 24 frames/sec, video rate is 30 frames/sec), and viola! you are flying! Chamecki & Lerner make it seem easy with their cute wings and colored boots breezing up the city sidewalks and frolicking in the park, but trust me, don't try this at home!

Stay tuned for up-coming events, new submission opportunities, workshops, social networks, and more great things for videodance artists to take advantage of here in New York City!

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May 12, 2008

Kriota Willberg asks: What's the Worst Dance Film Ever?

1.  WHAT, IN YOUR OPINION, IS THE WORST DANCE FILM OF ALL TIME, EVER?  It can be a full film or just an excerpt, and any style or type of dance at all, but it has to be on film.

2. WHY?

Please submit your answers in the comments section below by Friday May 16th.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm putting together an evening of "Bad" dance film clips.   As many of you know, I've been studying bad and mediocre dance for a number of years.  As I put the program together, I am organizing examples of different categories of Bad  (offensive, inept, confusing, etc.) from the early 1900's to the present.  As an acknowledgment to the highly personal perception of bad dance, I'd love to get your input.  Below is the description and particulars of the night.

Thanks for your time!

Best,

Kriota Willberg

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May 9, 2008

Boris Willis Finishes Dance-A-Day on Sunday May 11th

In the dance blog world, Boris Willis is a bit of a rock star. He's been posting a dance video every day on his blog, danceaday.com since May 11, 2007 and now this Sunday he will make his final post. If you take a quick perusal of Boris' blog, you will see that he has gone on an amazing and profound journey full of experimentation, discovery and varied terrains. From his first video shot in a parking lot demonstrating effeminate gestures, to an entire month of posts about important sites of Black history in Washington DC, as well as 43 collaborations with the fabulous composer, David Morneau (who has also been posting a composition a day on his blog 60x365.com), Willis covers the entire range of styles, experiments, and types of improvisation one can do with dance and a camera.

This is a lasting and valuable collection of videodance for the web 2.0 era. Thank you Boris for your tireless commitment to this adventure and sharing it with us everyday.

Check out his blog at danceaday.com, and be sure to send him off with style!

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May 7, 2008

Godard and Waters do the Madison

There is something about the Madison, that grand-daddy of line dances, that has continually captured the cinematic fancy of great film directors. The most notable of these are Jean-Luc Godard who created a famous dance scene based on the Madison in his 1964 film Bande à Part, and John Waters who depicted the dance in a scene in the original 1988 Hairspray. For both directors this dance, with its post-modern use of repetition, accumulation, and cultural references, was a perfect vehicle to suspend the plotlines of their films and delve into the inner workings of their characters.


Dance scene from Bande à Part


In Bande à Part, the famous dance scene comes after the equally famous "minute of silence" scene in which two of the main characters, Arthur and Odile, decide to be silent in a café. After the silent spell is broken by Franz, Arthur and Odile decide to get up and dance (and are soon joined by Franz). In a way, this dance continues the pause begun earlier with the minute of silence. There has been a rent in action, the world is still not normal. People do not normally just get up and dance in cafes where no one else is dancing. Also, we don't know if there is actually music playing in the room because it drops out occasionally when a narrator speaks, but we still hear the dancers' foot shuffles and claps. Could they actually be dancing in silence? At the same time, the narrator's voice brings in yet another level of reality as he tells us what each character is thinking about while they dance. This scene, while appearing to be so simple, is actually a very sophisticated example of how film can reveal many layers of reality at once. We see the "normal" world of the cafe around the characters, the familiar dance style of the The Madison being performed out of context, and then the shifting reality of the sound and narration telling us about things we can't see. No wonder this scene has been so influential on numerous other movies, Hal Hartley's dance scene in Simple Men being a prime example.


Dance scene from Simple Men


Unlike many other filmmakers that made dance scenes in the footsteps of Godard, Waters' Madison scene in Hairspray was a completely different take. First of all, Waters is a connoisseur of '60's dances. In addition to bringing the Madison back to greatness, he also reacquainted us with "The Mashed Potato," "The Fly," and "The Bump." It is clear however, that "The Madison" was one of his favorites, by virtue of the length of the scene and the many variations lovingly depicted.


Excerpt of the Madison scene in Hairspray

Like Godard's scene in Bande à Part, this one takes a long and sultry pause in the action and we learn a little more about how the characters really feel. The heroine, Tracy Turnblad cuts in between Link Larson (her love interest) and the prissy Amber von Tussle (Link's girlfriend). Link shows interest in Tracy, and Amber shoots her with disdain. All the while, the hypnotic rhythm and swing of the dance continues, turning the characters about and giving them actions which belie their feelings and motivations. I love the choreography of this Madison. It's complex but supposed to look easy. The call of the DJ instructs the dancers about what to do next, and each repetition of the dance adds a new gesture. The names of the moves are really great too, including "T time", "The Basketball (with Wilt Chamberlain)" and the "The Rifleman".

According to Wikipedia and the Columbus Music History website, the Madison developed in Columbus, Ohio in 1957. It was popularized by Count Basie in 1959, and quickly spread as he toured across the US and Europe. Apparently Waters' depiction of the dance is accurate, and Godard's is not (although he never calls it the Madison in the film, that was just what the actors called it). Nevertheless, it is clear that this dance has a certain something that is especially well suited for the silver screen. Maybe it's the mesmerizing repetition, or its ability to unify a motley cast of characters, or maybe it's just 'cause it swings, but whatever the case the Madison has been a catalyst for new innovations in film, and has undoubtedly inspired many generations of filmmakers to use dance in novel and sophisticated ways.



This article is part of Ferdy On Films' Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon happening May 4-10, 2008 all over the blogosphere...

Many thanks to Levi Gonzalez whose program at Kinetic Cinema on Monday night (5/5/08) inspired me to write about Godard's dance scene in Bande à Part.

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Update 5/22/08:
Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders) is playing at Film Forum in NYC this weekend - Thurs-Sat 5/22-5/24. Click here for ticket info.

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May 5, 2008

A Great Week for Dance Film Lovers (especially in NYC)

Yes, that's right! There is a lot going on this week that you should know about...

Screening:
First, you won't want to miss Kinetic Cinema tonight (5/5) curated by downtown dance fav Levi Gonzalez. Levi has brought out a bunch of friends to share cutting edge dance videos and talk about experimentalism in dance and film. Come see new videodances by Melanie Maar, Sarah White, Theo Angell, Yasuko Yokoshi, Hedia Maron, ChameckiLerner, and much more! 

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