August 27, 2008

Choreographer and Video Artist Jillian Peña Needs Our Help!

Please see this heart-felt email from Miguel Gutierrez about dancer/choreographer/video and performance artist Jillian Peña who sustained critical injuries after being hit by a car two weeks ago. The driver was unlicensed, and Jillian, like many of us in the dance community, does not have health insurance. She needs all of our support right now. Please consider giving a donation. Details below.


Hello

I hope this email finds you well.

I am writing you to ask you for your support for my dear friend Jillian Peña.

You may or may not know that Jillian, who is a dancer, choreographer and video artist, was hit by a car in New York 2 1/2 weeks ago in Brooklyn, NY. This article in the Post has some of the basic information about it: http://www.nypost.com/seven/08122008/news/regionalnews/promising_dancer_hit_by_auto_124057.htm

Since then she has been at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. She was admitted with two hematomas in her head, underwent multiple surgeries, and is now progressively waking up from a coma.

Despite the gravity of the accident and the anxiety of the past few weeks, I believe that Jillian is definitely on the road to recovery. I have been inspired and heartened by the amount of improvement in her condition in just the past 3 days. Yesterday she was transferred from the Intensive Care Unit to the Rehabilitation floor of the hospital, which, in and of itself is cause for celebration.

For updates and info on her situation, you can go to friendsofjillian.blogspot.com

Unfortunately, as with so many artists and working people in this country, Jillian doesn't have health insurance. The medical costs will be staggering. In addition, her parents have re-located here indefinitely from their home in New Mexico, and it will be a huge expense for them as well to stay in NY during Jillian's rehabilitation.

A paypal account has been set up to receive financial donations to alleviate the financial hardship that Jillian and her family are experiencing at this time. Please consider making a donation on her behalf. ANY amount, any number of times that you can give it, will be invaluable for her and for her family. I know this is hardly a time when people have extra cash, but please know that this donation will provide immediate and much needed assistance. No donation is too small or too large.

To donate, go to paypal.com and sign up for an account (takes literally about 2-3 minutes) and then go to the "Send Money" tab and make the donation to:
donations4jillian@gmail.com

Again, please consider making a donation on behalf of Jillian and her family today. With help from as many people as possible, we can keep the focus on Jillian's recovery.

And of course, feel free to pass this email on to as many people as you like.

Thank you
Miguel


www.miguelgutierrez.org

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August 26, 2008

See Footage From My New Videodance, "Fünf 'n' Twist" at the September Dance Film Lab

Next Tuesday (Sept 2nd) I'll be showing brand new footage from my latest videodance project, Fünf 'n' Twist. Two weeks ago I shot the prom scenes for this surreal Busby Berkeley-esque, satire that oozes with kitschy Americana, German expressionism, and Jungian symbology. Come see what a raw videodance looks like before it gets cooked!

Details:

The Dance Film Lab is moderated and organized by Zach Morris (Third Rail Projects), produced and run with the assistance of Kathleen Green, and in cooperation with the Dance Films Association. Hosted by Dance Theater Workshop, this salon brings dance filmmakers together to present raw footage, drafts, works-in-progress and newly finished films to their peers for constructive feedback, to share information, and address technical, practical and artistic challenges. The lab is free and open to the public, though reservations are necessary.

For our upcoming September 2nd Dance Film Lab, where we'll be screening the work of Leah Kelley Xylona and Anna Brady Nuse.

Dance Film Lab, Tuesday, September 2, 2008 8-10pm
at Dance Theater Workshop (DTW)
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
Phone: (212) 691-6500 Click Here for DTW's website.
Please contact Zach Morris to RSVP.
 
 (please note: Zach will out of town August 24th to the morning of September 2nd.  During this time he will not be responding to emails, so if you email him, simply consider your RSVP confirmed).

Photo credit: Production still from the set of Fünf 'n' Twist, directed by Anna Brady Nuse (Tika pictured as the Matron). photo by Susanna Christians.

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August 19, 2008

The Making of FÜNF 'N' TWIST

For the last three weeks I've been completely consumed by my videodance project, Fünf 'n' Twist. Last Thursday and Friday we shot all the prom scenes of the video, and it marked my first time directing (and producing) an indoor shoot.

Kerrie Welsh & J Why, on set of Fünf 'n' Twist. Photo: Susanna Christians

Through a monumental effort on the part of my cast and crew, we got all the essential shots done, including a tricky Busby Berkeley-esque overhead shot that required my DP, Kerrie Welsh, to climb a 16 foot extension ladder and mount her camera to the side with a hi-hat and rachet strap.


Fünf 'n' Twist - Twist Dance Storyboard from Anna Brady Nuse on Vimeo.

This storyboard is of the twist dance scenes of the video. Originally I was also going to shoot a slow dance scene that would have more of an 80's feeling. However on the first day of shooting we were getting very behind schedule, and I realized the slow dance scenes would have to be cut. I had already decided that they weren't so essential to the story line, and in some ways they might have even detracted from the overall piece. The twist dance is at the opening of the video, and the dance along with the music will set up the themes of authoritarianism & rebellion, fear, sex, and that in between place I'm calling fünf, as well as point towards America's cultural adolescence in the second half of the 20th Century.

Production still of Fünf 'n' Twist. Photo: Susanna Christians
Remarkably we were able to shoot all of the scenes I had envisioned without any major compromises. My dancers pulled off the choreography that I came up with on paper. Donna Costello and Matt Sweeney, the two leads, rehearsed the choreography with me ahead of time and then taught it to the other three couples on set.

The dancers all handled the surprises I threw at them with poise and a can-do attitude. This included asking the guys to flip off the girls' backs from a bridge position and do a cartwheel from the left side. The latter request wasn't possible for all the male dancers to do, but our grip, Stephen Long, stepped in to save the day. With a background in gymnastics he put on the tux and performed the cartwheel perfectly, earning a second credit of "stunt double."





Now I just have one more scene to shoot, which is a "flash-forward" scene of the lead couple holed up in a dingy tenement with paper walls. I won't give away the details, but I'm hoping to raise the funds and resources to shoot these scenes in early '09. In the meantime I'll be working hard along with my composer/collaborator, J Why to create a rough cut of the finished scenes to screen here in New York before the end of the year.



Here is a video study of the final scenes of the film, when the boy and girl escape the prom and run into a wild overgrown city park to "get it on." Instead of portraying the cliche sex scenes literally, I decided to portray them in a ritualistic metaphorical way, where we see the inner feelings of the characters portrayed outwardly in symbolic imagery.

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July 23, 2008

Artist-driven Curating and How it Could Help Galvanize a Screendance Movement

At the Screendance conference at ADF two weeks ago, I presented a paper that put forth an argument for the value of "artist-driven" curating in developing and galvanizing an art form.  I wanted to propose a way of raising awareness about screendance among dance communities that would help dancers feel like they can enter this art form that is new to them with a set of useable skills and knowledge already in place. In forming a strategy, I drew upon Paulo Friere's concept of praxis from his pivotal book on liberation education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. For Freire, the way to raise consciousness among any group of people is by posing problems. This process of asking questions and raising problems, activates both students and teachers in a dialogue that brings about reflection and leads to future action.  Freire calls this pattern of action-reflection-action praxis, and it is through praxis that people engage in cognitive discovery of their lives that is transformative and empowering. From third world peasants to American dance artists, this process enables people to transform their daily realities and create lives full of meaning.

In my Kinetic Cinema screening series I posed a question to my guest curators from the  NYC dance community, "What films and videos have influenced and inspired your work in dance?" Each curator came up with a completely different way of answering that question, and the works they chose revealed their own unique thinking patterns and artistic processes. Some curators, such as Malinda Allen, chose to curate autobiographical evenings, chronicling their artistic development through pivotal works that have inspired them. Other curators, like Levi Gonzalez, chose to show work that was new to them, and investigate the commonalities and differences between screendance and dance performance. Still others such as Jonah Bokaer and Kriota Willberg, have studied the history of film and video art extensively, and for their programs they decided to delve into very specific areas of research such as feminist video art and the female body, or "bad dance" films.

Judson Dance Theater, photo Elaine Summers
Kinetic Cinema is an example of what I have dubbed "artist-driven" curating, in which artists get together and share works that have meaning to them, often in informal intimate settings. The value of this type of curating is that it sparks artistic dialogue and exchange between the "makers" in a field, which can then lead to new art movements with distinct identities and progressive agendas. There have been numerous artist-driven curating collectives in the past that have had a huge impact upon the development of dance and film. A classic example of artist-driven curating is the Judson Dance Theater that formed in the early sixties as a collective of experimental dance artists interested in pushing the boundaries of post-modern dance. They were given the meeting room of the historical Judson Church to conduct their investigations and present public performances. The work that resulted from these programs went on to fuel the modern dance community for decades to come, with generations of dancers and choreographers spring-boarding off of the ideas and breakthroughs of the original collective.

On the film side, Jean Luc Godard would never have developed his unique and influential style without his competitive and close relationship with fellow French New Wave director, François Truffaut. Although they were very different in many ways, their artistic visions were honed and shaped by the intense dialogue and exchange of ideas they had with each other over many years. The French New Wave was born out of the critical discourse started by writers and cinephiles in the film journal, Cahiers du Cinéma. These writers were seeking a new type of cinema that didn't exist in France at the time, one that married their love of low-brow Hollywood genre flicks, with more experimental, intentional, and referential nuances found in high art, all brought together by their strong vision of the director as auteur. When these writers began acting upon their critiques, and creating work of their own, the French New Wave was born, and gave rise to a new era of filmmaking that completely changed the art form in much the same way the Judson Dance Theater group did for dance.

There have never been more ways for individuals to share and distribute their media content than there are today. With the rise of the internet, and the social media of Web 2.0, today's artist-driven initiatives are less inhibited by distance or financial limitations. Some recent examples of artist-driven projects for screendance on the internet are the social network dance-tech.net founded by NY-based dance media artist, Marlon Barrios-Solano, blogs such as this one, and email lists such as the media-arts-and-dance listserv moderated by Simon Fildes. These online forums are bringing together an international community of dance filmmakers who can interact and share work and ideas with each other easily and instantaneously. The result will be a more unified and cosmopolitan screendance community, where new entrants can feel part of an existing movement.

New art movements and genres don't get made overnight, but in the case of screendance, it is crucial to raise awareness and interest in the dance community. Through curating initiatives that pose questions and engage artists and audiences in dialogue, we can facilitate praxis. This process involves leading artists to examine, critique and analyze dance in media, and also to make work of their own, thereby transforming and shaping the genre and, by extension, the world. Artist-driven curating is one proven way to galvanize an arts community and further the identity of an art movement. These artist-driven initiatives, while often underground and informal, serve as springs that feed into larger institutions, such as dance film festivals, museums/galleries, performance venues, and universities. It is in these small, seemingly insignificant ways, that we can move screendance into cultural prominence, and make dance relevant in today's mediatized world.

Addendum:
I should clarify a few assumptions and opinions I have about dance and "screendance" which came up in discussion after my presentation at the Screendance conference. First, I am coming from a dance background, and ultimately, I want my work in screendance to have a positive effect on the art form of dance in general. I learned while at the conference that this isn't a common position among everyone in the screendance field. Karen Pearlman, a dance filmmaker and co-artistic director of PhysicalTV helped us all tremendously by making a Venn diagram to illustrate the hybridity of screendance at the last Screendance conference in 2006. (see below)


What I learned at the conference is that practitioners of screendance can come from one of three different art areas: dance, film, or visual arts. Everyone's location on the diagram is different and can move around, sometimes overlapping more with dance and visual arts, other times more with film, etc etc...

I shade towards the dance circle, and am biased about wanting screendance to do something for dance in general. Not that it should always serve to directly promote live performance, but rather that I think a vibrant screendance movement can have beneficial impact on live dance performance as well.  I also feel that dance as an art form has suffered and is suffering from a lack of resources and cultural capital (meaning attention and value from the culture at large). I believe that one reason for this poverty of cultural capital for dance is due to the art form's lack of visibility in media (meaning mass reproduced and distributed moving images). After the birth of film in the late 19th century, cultural capital has shifted away from the live performing arts and towards mediated arts, such as film, television, and now broadband video. Unlike music and drama, dance has not developed a recorded media industry around it, and this has left dance artists (for better or for worse) with very few opportunities to reach a mass audience, have an competitive economic engine, or come out from behind the banners of other genres such as music videos, movie musicals, or even commercials.

I'm not interested in being part of a huge dance media industry, however I do see some benefits that other art forms have gained as a result of spawning commercial media juggernauts. Take music for instance. Over the course of 50 years of pop hits and mega record sales in the "Rock & Roll" (and then just "Rock") music genres, there was a huge influx of kids learning to play guitar, forming garage bands, and talking about music. Today, even with the music industry floundering in the digital file-sharing age, the indie music scene is flourishing better than ever with 35 million users on MySpace (many of them musicians or music lovers), magazines, books, radio shows, tv channels, films, documentaries, and blogs that feed a vibrant discussion that most Americans can engage in. Imagine if dance had this kind of relevancy to peoples' lives...Maybe there wouldn't be so many dance critics being laid off, maybe more people would be interested in the difference between modern and post-modern contemporary dance, or maybe dance classes would be as popular as sports in public schools. Being a choreographer would be as cool as being a rock star.... Actually, this is already starting to happen with popular dance competition shows like "So You Think You Can Dance"... But I digress...

So, now you know my agenda, but I'm never going to be a media mogul. I will leave it to other shrewd bean counters to figure out how to squeeze out the dollars and cents from an art form ripe for the picking.  I'm an artist who sees limitless artistic potential for dance in screen-based mediums. Alongside the commercialization of dance screen, I want to see a vibrant exploration by dancers in the dance/film/visual art hybridity called screendance. This is where artist-driven curating comes in. I believe screendance can empower dancers who decide to enter into it. The movement for screendance has been slow to happen in the dance community, and dancers in the United States at least, have not seen media as a tool for artistic empowerment and growth. Despite the rise of dance film festivals around the world, I haven't seen a comparable rise in awareness and understanding about screendance in my own dance community here in New York. The Dance On Camera Festival happens in January when the APAP conference is consuming the attention of most dancers. Even dancers who do get exposed to screendance, and then decide they want to try making a video or film of their own, usually hit a wall when they realize the massiveness of such a task. It's an incredibly steep learning curve to jump from stage to screen, requiring a completely new set of skills and collaborators who understand dance, and there is little support or resources out there for dancers who want to make this leap. What is lacking is funding for production and creative development, distributors, classes, mentorship, critical writing, and even a central repository of knowledge or easily accessible catalogue of films to look at.

Things are definitely improving however, and as I listed above, there are numerous new artist-driven initiatives that are springing up on web-based media platforms. I hope that local movements also continue to grow and multiply. I would love to see artist-driven curating collectives spring up in other cities around the US and the world. It doesn't take much to do, you just need a space, a projector and some friends to get started. Pick a question and try to answer it visually. Share what inspires you and talk about why. Have a dinner party and cater the films. In whatever fashion, we all have the ability to participate in the discussion, and help shape this unique art form of screendance into a vibrant cultural phenomenon.

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July 21, 2008

Ballet Films at Lincoln Center by Dominique Delouche

An announcement from Deirdre Towers at the Dance Films Association:

The Film Society is offering the affiliate price for DFA members at this week's series of

Ballet Cineaste: Dominique Delouche (July 23-27)
Walter Reade Theater, Upper Plaza, 65th Street
(btw Broadway and Amsterdam Aves)
tix and info: http://filmlinc.org/

Dominique Delouche has devoted much of his working life to filming great
dancers who illuminated his youth, to preserve the tradition as well as
the memory of the dance from one generation to the next. This is the first
American retrospective of the dance filmmaker, whose devotional tone,
always sparked with humor, gave his career its special place. For further
information and to purchase tickets, please visit filmlinc.com. DFA staff
and members can purchase a pair of tickets at the discount price of $7
each. When buying online please select the affiliate ticket option. These
can be picked up from the Walter Reade Theater box office. If you buy
tickets directly from the box office please print out this email or give
the code DFADD08 to the box office to get the discount.

Deirdre says: "I can't go unfortunately because I will be presenting dance on camera in
Burgos, Spain but I urge you to go. Dominique Delouche is a charming man
and he will be there to speak at all the screenings. My favorite one of
his films is KATIA & VOLODIA."

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June 27, 2008

Summer Travels and Videodance

I'm about to start a twelve day cross-country road trip, driving from West to East with one of my best friends who's moving back to Vermont. We'll be stopping at a bunch of national parks along the way including Crater Lake (OR), Glacier (MT), Yellowstone & the Grand Tetons (WY), and the Blackhills & the Badlands (SD). It's gonna be great, but I won't be able to post to Move the Frame for a while. There are lots of videodance activities happening around the world this summer, so I thought I'd leave you with a few things to keep you busy while I'm MIA.

As soon as I get back to New York, I will be leaving again, this time to go to the Screendance conference at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC from July 10-13th, where I will be delivering a paper on curating. Below is the abstract for my presentation, which is titled after a post I wrote here a few months ago.

Thoughts on Curating - How to Bring About a Shift in Perception

Screendance, while growing as a genre worldwide, is still basically unknown in American culture at large. Even within the field of dance, most choreographers and dancers in the United States believe they are unable to name a single work of screendance. The problem is that so much dance for screen is perceived to be part of another genre, be it music videos, advertisements, or experimental films. Screendance as a genre is a foreign concept to the typical viewer, but only a slight shift of perception is necessary to render it familiar and identifiable. To help bring about this shift in perception in my own dance community, I have started a monthly screening series in which I invite guest artists to curate evenings of films and videos that have inspired their work with dance. In compiling their programs, my guest curators discover the knowledge they already have about media and dance and are able to share their insights in ways that other dancers can easily relate to. This simple curated series has raised awareness for the genre in my community and is laying a seed bed for future creativity and experimentation in the form. Like the Judson Dance Theater, Jonas Mekas' New American Cinema Group, and more recently Richard Linklater's Austin Film Society, forming an artist-driven curating collective for screendance has the ability to galvanize a community, inspire new work, and further the boundaries of the art form.

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while will recognize my thought processes on curating as I've written extensively about them in my posts about the Kinetic Cinema screening series for the past six months. I'm excited to listen and talk to the other presenters at the conference this year about this very important topic for videodance.

The other presentations at the conference will be:
"Screendance: Curating the Practice" (Opening Talk by Douglas Rosenberg)
 "Does Screendance Need to Look Like Dance?" by Claudia Kappenberg, Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, UK.
 "Tutus and Bonfires" by Gitta Wigro, a freelance programmer from the UK.
 "Beyond the Lens III" Sini Haapalinna, a freelance artist from Finland.

Also Meredith Monk will be honored for her work in film and give an intimate discussion with the Screendance participants. There will also be two curated programs during the conference in addition to the Dancing for the Camera Festival taking place at the same time, which is open to the public.

If you can't get down to North Carolina this summer, then those of you in Europe should head to the Cinedans Festival taking place July 3-10th in Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

From the Cinedans website:

This sixth edition of the Cinedans has an exclusive collection of national and international dance films in store for you. Films from a new generation of dance film makers will be screened from over fifteen countries. Six documentaries allow you a glance into the dance kitchen of locally operating dancers or internationally renowned choreographers and William Forsythe and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker compiled a varied selection of their favorite dance films. In addition, Forsythe presents filminstallations, exciting crossovers of performance, film, dance and installation.

Janine Dijkmeijer, the director of Cinedans and Annelyke van den elshout, the program manager, were both at the first Kinetic Cinema screening in January as part of the Dance On Camera Festival. I was happy to see that they have started their own artist curating initiative this summer with their Carte Blanche program, in which they asked choreographers William Forsythe and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker to put together an evening of films and videos that have been influential on them personally and artistically. These kinds of artist-driven curating programs are so easy to do, and they give such wonderful results in terms of generating interest, dialog and connections for artists and viewers alike. I'm glad the idea is spreading, and I wish I could be there to see these programs! If anyone reading this is able to go, please send me your report and impressions!

Finally, I'm happy to report that I will be finishing production on a new videodance this summer called Fünf 'n' Twist. There will be many more postings about the creative process of making this work in the near future. In the meantime, you can watch a study of the ending of this piece that we made last spring here in HD on Vimeo!

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June 17, 2008

Kenneth Anger and Amy Greenfield Heat Up Anthology Film Archives this Weekend (June 20 & 21)

Two renown experimental filmmakers, Kenneth Anger and Amy Greenfield, are being featured at Anthology Film Archives in New York this weekend. The event, called "Cinema Dance Eros" will will be comprised of two programs of shorts that examine the erotic and sensual movement themes in both filmmakers' work.

CLUB MIDNIGHT by Amy Greenfield
Amy Greenfield is a pioneer of cinedance and videodance, and for the past decade has embarked on a series of shorts about exotic dancers and strippers that were recently compiled in collection called CLUB MIDNIGHT. In these sensual films, the female subjects are the embodiment of ancient female archetypes. Under Greenfield's treatment, female strippers become goddesses reincarnate, who carry out rituals of mythological proportions. In DARK SEQUINS dancer Andrea Beaman becomes Salome, performing the dance of the seven veils for a single man in an empty theater. In WILD FIRE four women whirl like the elements, whipping up energy into a hot frenzy.


Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome by Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger's work is not usually associated with dance, but nevertheless, his wordless films are highly attenuated to movement. According to the curators of "Cinema Dance Eros", Anger trained as a dancer in his youth, and one of his unfinished projects was a film of a Jean Cocteau ballet (Oh, if only we could see that!). The programs this weekend will feature some of his most famous works including FIREWORKS (which first garnered him attention from Jean Cocteau) and INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME.

These two programs are sure to fan the flames of any lover of mythology, magic, and eroticism! Don't miss it!

Here are the details:

CINEMA DANCE EROS
Featuring filmmakers Kenneth Anger & Amy Greenfield
June 20th & 21st
Amy Greenfield in person!

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
32 SECOND AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10003
phone (212) 505-5181 fax (212) 477-2714

PROGRAM 1:
Amy Greenfield DANCING IN FRONT OF THE DARK (1980/1992, 4 minutes, video)
Amy Greenfield DIRT (1971, 3 minutes, 16mm)
Amy Greenfield ELEMENT (1973, 11 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger FIREWORKS (1947, 15 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger MY SURFING LUCIFER (2007, 4.5 minutes, video)
Amy Greenfield TIDES (1982, 12 minutes, 16mm. Photographed by Hilary Harris.)
Kenneth Anger EAUX D'ARTIFICE (1953, 13 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger RABBIT'S MOON (1950/1971, 16 minutes, 16mm)
Kenneth Anger PUCE MOMENT (1949, 6 minutes, 16mm. With Yvonne Marquis.)
Amy Greenfield CLUB MIDNIGHT (2006, 8.5 minutes, 35mm. With Bonnie Dunn & Andrea Beeman. Poetry by Charles Simic, spoken by Dennis Hopper.)
Total running time: ca. 100 minutes.
-Friday and Saturday, June 20 & 21 at 7:00.

PROGRAM 2:
Kenneth Anger PUCE MOMENT (1949, 6 minutes, 16mm. With Yvonne Marquis.)
Amy Greenfield DARK SEQUINS (2005, 13 minutes, 35mm. With Andrea Beeman.)
Amy Greenfield LIGHT OF THE BODY (2004, 11 minutes, 35mm/video. With Francine Breen. Music by Marilys Ernst.)
Amy Greenfield WILDFIRE (2003, 12 minutes, 35mm. With Andrea Beeman, Francine Breen, Bonnie Dunn, Cynthia DeMoss. Music by Philip Glass.)
Kenneth Anger INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER (1969, 11 minutes, 16mm. With Kenneth Anger. Music by Mick Jagger.)
Kenneth Anger INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME (1954, 38 minutes, 16mm. With Samson DeBreer, Cameron, Curtis Harrington, Anaïs Nin, and Kenneth Anger.)
Total running time: ca. 95 minutes.
-Friday and Saturday, June 20 & 21 at 9:30. 

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June 10, 2008

Three Yvonne Rainer Films Screening at Chez Bushwick

Chez Bushwick in Brooklyn is screening three films by Yvonne Rainer over three weeks this month. Unfortunately I'm late in announcing this, and the first one, Lives of Performers took place last Wednesday, June 4th. There is still time to catch Murder and Murder, this Wednesday, June 11th, and Privilege next Wednesday, June 18th.

Yvonne Rainer was a member of Judson Dance Theater in the 1960's, and is renown for her experimental innovations in dance, performance, and film. Here are two well-informed descriptions of her films being screened from Erin Brannigan's essay on Rainer in sensesofcinema.com.

"MURDER and murder" (1996, winner of the Teddy Award, Berlin Film Festival, 1997 and the Special Jury Award, Miami Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, 1999), was made after Rainer's characteristically public and publicly self-analysed 'coming out' as a lesbian in 1991. (33) The film also corresponds with Rainer's breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy. MURDER and murder is considered Rainer's fullest commitment to fictional characterisation, being her first film to actually play out a relationship between two characters on screen with dialogues replacing monologues.

..."Privilege" (winner of the Dramatic Filmmaker's Trophy, Sundance Film Festival, Utah, 1991 and the Geyer Werke Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival, Munich, 1991), [is] a film that has a black-on-white act of violence at its centre. As in many of Rainer's films, she couples her central idea with another unrelated but complementary one; in this case menopause and female aging. Racial and economic issues gave Rainer a new focus that emerged from the critique of feminism's white middle-class profile.

Screening info:

Murder and Murder
By Yvonne Rainer
Wednesday, June 11th
7:30pm
$5
 
Privilege
By Yvonne Rainer
Wednesday, June 18th
7:30pm
$5
 

---

All  screenings will take place at:
 
Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11 (At White)
Brooklyn, NY 11206
718.418.4405
info@chezbushwick.net

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June 5, 2008

Bad Dance, Good Cinema, and Why It's All Better Than Boring

Kriota Willberg's program, "The Worst of the Best" for Kinetic Cinema Monday night was extremely entertaining. She proved beyond a doubt that examining truly bad dance film is fun, inspiring, and highly effective at eliciting an emotional response from the crowd.

For all of you who thought about or responded to Kriota's earlier online poll "What's the Worse Dance Film Ever" you may be interested to see what made the cut in the end. Here is the list of the films she discussed Monday night and a short summary of why they were chosen:

The Mothering Heart (1913), Dir: DW Griffith
Reason: MADE BAD AND STRANGE BY HISTORY

Spectre of the Rose (1946), Dir: Ben Hecht, Dancer: Ivan Kirov, Chor: Tamara Geva
Reason: MADE WORSE BY THE BACKSTORY
 
Torch Song (1953), Dir: Charles Walters, Dancer: Joan Crawford and ensemble, Chor: Charles Walters
Reason: OFFENSIVE = BAD (Cast was in black face in 1953!!)

Staying Alive (1983), Dir: Sylvester Stallone, Dancers: John Travolta, Finola Hughes, Cynthia Rhodes, Chors:  Dennan and Sayhber Rawles
Reason: DRAMA!!!!

Center Stage (2000), Dir: Nicholas Hytner, Dancers: Amanda Schull, Sascha Radetsky, Ethan Stiefel, and ensemble, Chor: Susan Strohman
Reason: THE SAFE CHOICES AREN'T ALWAYS THE BEST CHOICES

Showgirls (1995), Dir: Paul Verhoeven, Dancers: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon and ensemble, Chor: Marguerite Pomerhn-Derricks
Reason: DRAMATIC! OFFENSIVE!  MADE WORSE BY BACKSTORY!

Preceding the bad dance films, Kriota also discussed the difference between BAD and BORING and illustrated it with a montage of boring dance film and video clips she culled from the web (actually her poor assistant, Gretchen culled them from the web!). The interesting thing about the difference between bad and boring is that it often comes down to money. Apparently the "have nots" aren't really capable of making truly bad art, only dull art. As Kriota explained, when a filmmaker has over a million dollars to make a dance movie, and it turns out to be boring, then we are outraged, "Is that all that you could do?" and that automatically bumps it into the bad category. Whereas when a low budget video of, say, a naked man flapping around on the floor in a puddle goes on and on, it's just dull and we feel like we are wasting our time.

I'd never thought of this difference before, but in terms of my emotional response it's true, I'm more outraged by a squandering of resources and opportunities than watching a boring video on YouTube. I guess jealousy has a big role to play in what makes something bad or just boring, which is also proof positive of the irrationality behind all demarcations of good and bad. Who can really judge these things beyond a reasonable doubt? No one, but at least Kriota has taken a stab at defining her standards for judgment, something all of us curators, presenters, and critics should do!

Amy Greenfield, a cine- and videodance pioneer, was also in attendance Monday night and had some interesting insights to share...

"Thoughts on Monday. Great premise btw  - most thought-provoking program so far. That's GREAT.  BAD ISN'T BORING!

It was also so enjoyable because except for the boring tapes, cinematically this "bad" filmdance was the best cinema of the season - Hollywood films! I love the contradiction and feel it needs to be recognized. Also realized Monday that "dance people" and "laypeople" looking at them will have very different reactions cause most people look at the film as film first, and in context with the rest of the film as they were features. Yeats asked 'How do you tell the dancer from the dance?' Monday night's delightful, insightful show made me ask 'How do you tell the cinema from the dance?'

Some of my own thoughts on Monday PM: 
I've seen The Mothering Heart and it's an important silent film by the great film pioneer, DW Griffith. I love the film and never noticed the dance moment screened. The actress in the foreground is Lilian Gish, one of the great silent film actresses. Notice her restraint vs the dance. Lilian and her sister Dorothy were sent by Griffith to study dance at Denishawn. The ACTING in these films was good filmdance. (What's good filmdance and whats good dance put on film is there a difference?) Griffith used Denishawn dancers including Martha Graham in his masterpiece, Intolerance.

Ben Hecht who made Specter of the Rose was one of the great Hollywood screenwriters who obviously didn't know anything about dance. The dance in Spectre massacred influences from Deren's Study In Choreography For Camera and more especially Cocteau's Blood Of The Poet. The two 'good film good dance' moments had to do with real action, and the film actor's dictum - don't act, re-act: when the dancer lays down the knife at the sleeping woman's neck, and when he lept out the window, shattering the glass and going into non-existence as Nijinsky did on stage. That last moment was GREAT and worth all the previous BAD dancing.

Staying Alive was REALLY good cinema and I didn't think it was bad dance either though I just couldn't separate the film from the dance until the unfortunately stupid climax which went over the top - and tellingly, was the only part not shot close-up, fast cuts, and wasn't such excellent cinema.

The Stroman [Center Stage] was bad dance and bad cinema. Interesting how bad cinema can ruin good dance by Amanda Schull."

Amy

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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.

*********************
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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April 29, 2008

Levi Gonzalez at Kinetic Cinema May 5th

On Monday May 5th at 7:30 pm, Kinetic Cinema will feature choreographer and dance artist, Levi Gonzalez. The theme of his evening will be experimentalism in dance and film. I'm delighted by his topic, and feel like it may be a good way to continue a debate on this blog several months ago, in which I railed against experimental dance artists dissing their audiences.

Levi's statement:

"Experimentalism in both dance and film is often seen as an affront to its audience or an insular exercise in personal indulgence. Yet the perception of experimental work is fluid - it often changes with time, and each time period re-evaluates past work in a different light. It also has the power to change or highlight perception over time as the ideas filter, and become digested into the public consciousness. I find that experimentalism often runs the gamut from difficult to pleasant, angry to accessible, deeply introspective to communicative, self-involved to incredibly vulnerable. In short, no monolithic definition applies. This evening will highlight just a few strategies of experiementalism in the overlapping areas of dance and film - some that have occurred in the past and some that are currently being undertaken by contemporary artists - in an effort to point out the divergent approaches artists take in questioning their mediums and the myriad ways they affect our perceptions."

 A highlight of the evening will be a special screening of ChameckiLerner's "Flying Lesson", winner of the 2008 Dance On Camera Festival Jury Prize.

>> Also in celebration of Cinco de Mayo - be one of the first 10 people in the door and get a free Corona! <<

Kinetic Cinema
Monday May 5th, 7:30pm (and the first Monday of every month)
$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
Phone: 212.254.5277

Kinetic Cinema 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. Upcoming guests include Levi Gonzalez (May 5th) and Kriota Willberg (June 2nd).

Finally, many thanks to all who completed the Move the Frame survey online. If you haven't taken it yet, it's still not too late! Click here to spend 5 minutes helping Move the Frame improve!

¡Hasta La Vista!

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April 15, 2008

Miss Behavior: Video Art and the Female Body at Kinetic Cinema

What I love the most about my guest-curated Kinetic Cinema series is that I'm constantly exposed to new art and ideas I would never have run across otherwise. Last Monday's (4/7) program was no exception. Jonah Bokaer, dancer, choreographer, media artist, and community-builder extraordinaire surprised even me, by scrapping his original program of Nam June Paik videos, to show an evening completely devoted to feminist video art from the 60's and 70's, entitled "Miss Behavior: Video Art and the Female Body."

I only wish I'd had more time and resources to market and promote this evening, because it is so fascinating, rare, and exceptional to see works by such luminaries as Dara Birnbaum, Joan Jonas, Martha Rosler, Carolee Schneemann, and Hannah Wilke. It was a bold choice for Jonah, as a male dancer and media artist, to dedicate his evening to the accomplishments and advances of women in the male-dominated video art world. It was also a very interesting program show to an audience of dance people, who come from a field shaped by a very different gender dynamic from media arts. In media arts, the numbers of women participating are just generally low, however in dance, the gender diagram is shaped like a pyramid with a majority of females making up the base as dancers, students and teachers, and an increasing concentration of males populating the limited positions at the top (DanceNYC, "The Gender Project", Updated Research 2003). While women are not a rarity in the dance world, female leadership and artistic success (as measured by touring, commissions, and funding) is, given the huge ratio of women to men in the field.

Issues of the female body are also a constant undercurrent in dance performance. During the time period of the videos in this program, the dance world was undergoing its own post-modern investigations, and it seemed that choreographers and performers were trying to question and challenge all the common associations of the dancing body, particularly a female one, with sex, suggestiveness, and sensuality. Could a body be just a machine, or an object like any other prop? Could a female body be a blank slate, like a male body is? Are the bounds of femininity and gender stereotypes something to push against and destroy, or revel in and enunciate? The videos shown on Monday addressed these same questions from a number of different angles.

Dara Birnbaum's Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79) was an early precursor to the common YouTube mash-up video of today. Using what was cutting edge video editing technology of the day, she spliced together hundreds of clips of Lynda Carter's TV character twirling into and out of her Wonder Woman persona. At the end of the video, a sexy disco song about Wonder Woman plays while plain typed lyrics scroll up on a blue screen, seeming to ironically underscore the song's suggestiveness. Jonah described how Birnbaum encourages her work to be pirated and played in different contexts including clubs, theatres, and installations. The work is still remarkably fresh and fun even now, and this makes sense when you think about the fact that Birnbaum has been embracing the web 2.0 spirit for over 30 years!

Here is a very short clip from Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman:





Joan Jonas' Duet from 1972, is a performance-based video documenting a vocal duet between Jonas and her screen double. The two women howl like wolves at the moon, with the live Jonas' face in profile in front of a tv screen of her luminous face in extreme close-up. If viewed on its own, I may not have read this video from a feminist perspective, but given that the entire program was about women in video art, I started to think about "bitches" as slang for women and female dogs, and the archetypal connection of the moon with the female principle. The piece did not imply anything good or bad, it was simply an interesting composition that invited many interpretations and possible meanings.

Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975) shows how powerful simple task-based compositions can be. Delivered with deadpan wit, Rosler methodically goes through the alphabet showing and demonstrating common kitchen objects "Apron, Bowl, Chopper...". Despite the familiar surroundings, Rosler's kitchen is not warm and cozy. Instead she imbues each object with danger and violence through gestures that turn them into weapons rather than cooking implements. For "Chopper" she picks up a hand chopper and violently bangs it down into the bowl. For "knife" she picks up a long carving knife and jabs it sharply towards the camera. Even "spoon" isn't an implement to feed, instead she scoops up invisible liquid and hurls it out to the side. I love double meanings, and in this case Rosler juxtaposes gesture with words to break-down our assumptions and associations with women's work and the domestic realm.

When I think of Carolee Schneemann, the first thing that comes to mind is her famous Interior Scroll piece in which she pulled a scroll from her vagina and read a report of sexism. Beyond that, I know little about what else she has done. For this program Jonah selected a video that was neither erotic nor sexual. It was a 10 min 16mm film of a performance she did at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery called Water Light/Water Needle (Lake Mah Wah, NJ) (1966) in which the filmmaker was one of the performers. The result is a fragmented chaotic film of a performance that involved 8 tightrope walkers suspended over the ground and lots of paper and detritus everywhere. What I liked about it was the impression it gave of what it must have felt like to be inside the piece. With its inside view, the camera was able to convey the essence of the work - instability, tenuousness, balance - rather than capture a cold, impersonal document of the performance.

The last piece of the program, Through the Large Glass (1976) by Hannah Wilke was the most sexual in content, and for that reason perhaps still the most controversial today. In this film, Wilke performs a strip tease behind Marcel Duchamp's famous Large Glass, also known as The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. I didn't know the alternate title of Duchamp's work, and was glad Jonah mentioned it in his introduction, because by knowing this reference it made Wilke's performance a bold commentary on female objectification in Western art. Dressed in a white pants suit with a white fedora hat, Wilke struck different poses as she undressed, alternating between personas and genders. To me she was representing both the bride and the bachelors, sometimes feminine and coy, other moments defiant and haughty. Throughout the piece her gaze was fixed out on us, the audience on the other side of the glass (and the camera), making me feel like a subject as well. Generating a feeling of self-consciousness on the part of the viewer seemed to be the objective of Wilke's piece, and as a result it called attention to the male point-of-view implicit in most other Western art.

I'm very happy Jonah shared these works, and I hope there will be more chances to examine feminist motif's in Kinetic Cinema in the future. Many thanks to EAI (Electronic Arts Intermix) for access to these films, as well as Chez Bushwick and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts for support of this screening.

Next month at Kinetic Cinema - Levi Gonzalez on May 5th with a program on "What makes a dance or film experimental?"

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April 1, 2008

Jonah Bokaer at Kinetic Cinema April 7th

On Monday April 7th, don't miss Chez Bushwick founder and dance/media phenom Jonah Bokaer at Kinetic Cinema!

For his program, Jonah will show pivotal works of movement-based video art by Nam June Paik. The theme of the evening will be the thread between between video art and post-modern dance focusing on Paik's significant contributions to both art forms. As a dance artist whose work addresses the human body in relation to contemporary technologies, Jonah will be able to offer rare insights into Paik's multi-disciplinary work that overlapped with dance, music, visual art, media, and technology.

Kinetic Cinema
Monday April 7th, 7:30pm (and the first Monday of every month)
$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

Here's a glimpse at Nam June Paik's work with multiple television screens.



Kinetic Cinema 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. Upcoming guests include Jonah Bokaer (April 7th), Levi Gonzalez (May 5th), and Kriota Willberg (June 2nd).

Jonah Bokaer's work has been presented widely throughout venues in the United States and abroad, including Cornell University, Dance Theatre Workshop, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, La Mama ETC, P.S. 122, Symphony Space, The Laban Centre (London), the ISB (Bangkok), Naxos Bobine, Studio Théatre de Vitry, and La Générale (Paris), Les Subsistances (Lyon), La Compagnie (Marseille), and OT301 (Amsterdam). Bokaer was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2000 to 2007. In 2002, he formed Chez Bushwick with a group of artists and choreographers, to create an adventurous arts organization that has significantly impacted a new generation of dance artists.

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March 5, 2008

Follow-up to Malinda Allen's Kick-ass Kinetic Cinema Program

For Monday night's Kinetic Cinema screening at Collective:Unconscious, Malinda Allen, a fabulous dancer/choreographer and now CURATOR, presented the most bad-ass, inspiring evening of dance films and videos I've ever seen. It truly rocked! From YouTube video mash-ups to Busby Berkeley to experimental motion-capture studies, she had everything in there. The best thing was that she wove all the clips together like a travel log through dance in media, mixing in fun facts (like how Phillipe Découflé and Spike Jonze have the same birthday) and juicy stories throughout.

For those who came, and those who wished they were there, here is a link to Malinda's YouTube channel where you can see clips of most of the videos she showed as well as others that she digs.

I'll leave you with the final short of the evening, Malinda's own "Other Games." (BTW, she got her landlord to repair the holes in the walls of her hallway for free! This girl is brilliant...)

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February 11, 2008

Experimental Artists are Still Misunderstood, Despite Nod on YouTube

Yesterday a friend of mine forwarded me an email that said "CALL TO ARMS, of the utmost importance!" in the subject line. The urgent message was that a video of Karlheinz Stockhausen's infamous "Helicopter String Quartet" had been chosen as a feature for YouTube's homepage (in the online video world, this is like hitting the viral jackpot) but, due to the far out and wacky nature of this piece, the video was getting tons of derogatory comments and awful reviews from users. The email I received was a call to all supporters of the avant gard to get on YouTube and counteract the blasphemy taking place.

Well, I had to laugh, and hopefully Stockhausen (RIP) was chuckling too from his heavily sound-proofed corner of heaven. Finally the experimental art world got their wish come true. One of their own had been discovered and was being seen by the ignorant masses. As was prophesized, once the people saw this great light they would renounce pop culture and take up the cross of experimentalism. Never would they be placated and amused by fluffy cheap entertainment again. Britney would have to go on unemployment and spend the rest of her days in a trailer park, Justin Timberlake would need to wait tables for