September 26, 2008

Move the Frame Turns 1 year old!

It's Move the Frame's birthday! I can't believe it's been a year already. Looking back on my first post, I tackled the unanswerable question of what this genre/medium/interdisciplinary hybrid thing should be called, and 78 posts later, I'm still not sure. If anything I've gotten a little less sure, and am not using the term videodance as much. Screendance still sounds boring and dry to me, but I've got more respect for the inclusiveness of the term. I like the idea now of a multiplicity of terms, and saying: hey, we all have different interests in dance and media, just call it whatever you want.

To celebrate a year's worth of late nights putting off much-needed sleep to pursue a very bizarre obsession about a very bizarre subject, here are few of my "Greatest Hits", one for each month of this year.

Phillipine Prisoners Resurrect Busby Berkeley. This was my second post ever, and probably my best to date! I wish I could pull an article like this out everytime I sit down to write!

Viva la dance dance revolution! This was my wild idealist phase :)

Papelbon Dance I'm actually a Yankee's fan, but the fact that Jonathan Papelbon has increased dance appreciation around Red Sox Nation is blog-worthy in my book.

Project Bandaloop Straddles Different Definitions of Performance. I liked this strange merging of the commercial world with avant gard performance.

Introducing Kinetic Cinema (and reflecting on 2007) My screening series, Kinetic Cinema became a recurring topic of critique and reflection in 2008.

Second Life: A Puppet Play for the 21st Century. I'm still wrapping my brain around real-time performance in Second Life.

Thoughts on Curating: How to Bring About a Shift In Perception. This article was the genesis of my paper at the Screendance Conference at ADF this year.

Miss Behavior: Video Art and the Female Body at Kinetic Cinema. Thoughts after viewing very cool feminist video art presented by Jonah Bokaer at Kinetic Cinema.

Godard and Waters do the Madison I wrote this for Ferdy On Films' Dance Movie Blogathon. Later my investigation into these two directors' use of dance showed up in my new videodance, Fünf 'n' Twist when I shot the prom scenes this summer.

Bad Dance, Good Cinema, and Why It's All Better Than Boring Kriota Willberg's Kinetic Cinema program, The Worst of the Best was very stimulating!

Artist Driven Curating and How it Could Help Galvanize a Screendance Movement. Thoughts and ruminations provoked by my participation in the Screendance: State of the Art2 Conference at ADF this summer.

The Making of Fünf 'n' Twist A new videodance I'm making about a teenage couple and their rite of passage at the Prom. Weird and wonderful! Check out the photos and clips.

"PRIME MOVER" Screening Raises Questions of Merit & Worth of Dance Films Reflections on the most recent Kinetic Cinema program, and the difference between visual arts-based dance media works vs. cinema-based dance media.

That brings us pretty much to the present! I think I've matured and gotten a little more serious over the course of the year. Maybe I need to bring back some more Papelbon and Phillippine Prisoners. What do you think?

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 12:15 PM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 10:00 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 9:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 28, 2008

Seeking Dancers and Crew for a Videodance Shoot

In August I am shooting a new videodance entitled Fünf 'n' Twist, an abstract narrative short about a teenage couple at the prom. The prom scenes will be shot Thursday Aug 14th and Friday Aug 15th all day from approximately 8am-6pm in Washington Heights. Currently I am looking for male dancers as well as several crew positions both paid and non-paid.

About Fünf 'n' Twist: Using dance, ritualized movement, evocative sounds and imagery, the classically American rite of passage of the prom will be depicted as a metaphor for the adolescence of the country itself as it lurches clumsily towards a cultural adulthood. Last spring I shot the final scenes of the film, and you can see a rough cut study of the ending here on vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/1134237.

Below are descriptions of the positions I'm looking for.

Talent:
3-6 male dancers for prom scene. Must be able to dance (or be comfortable moving), and could pass for a prom-goer. Having your own tux is a plus, but not required. You must be available between 9am-5pm on Aug 14th and 15th. Pay will be $75/day. Please send a current headshot/photo to anuse@speakeasy.net.

Crew positions:
Production Manager: Responsible for assisting the director/producer with pre-production planning and managing all the logistics of the production. Will coordinate cast and crew, and stay on top of the budget and time schedule during the production. Must be available 8am-8pm Aug 13th-15th as well as for some preliminary planning work leading up to these days. Fee commensurate with experience. Please send resume to anuse@speakeasy.net.

Production Designer/Art Director: For a '60's era prom scene in a short experimental dance video. Must be resourceful, and able to make magic with a small budget! Must be available 8am-6pm Aug 13th-15th and for planning meetings with the director & DP leading up to these days. Fee commensurate with experience. Please send resume and portfolio/reel to Anna Brady Nuse: anuse@speakeasy.net

Lighting Designer/Grip: Shot-specific lighting for a '60's era prom scene. Must be flexible and able to make magic with a small budget. Must be available 8am-6pm Aug 13th-15th and for planning meetings with the director & DP leading up to these days. Fee commensurate with experience. Please send resume and portfolio/reel to Anna Brady Nuse: anuse@speakeasy.net

Production Assistants: Flexible, strong, energetic, and eager to learn about the makings of a videodance! Must be available on Aug 14th & 15th 8am-6pm. Also need prep help all day Aug 13th. No pay, but a great way to gain experience and skills. You will be given credit on the film and fed!

For more info, please contact me at anuse@speakeasy.net, and if you know of others who would be good for these positions please forward this link to them! 

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 11:14 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 12:12 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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!

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 5:37 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 17, 2008

Move the Frame Wordle

I just made a word image of my about page for Move the Frame on Wordle. Check it out and make your own!

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 8:15 PM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 23, 2008

A Little Shameless Market Research (for a good cause)

Click here to take a survey on Move the Frame!

Hi Everybody,

I'm conducting a little survey to collect information about YOU - my dearest readers - and your perceptions of Move the Frame blog and videodance in general to improve this blog (hopefully), and make it more useful to you and the videodance community (most definitely!). Also, I'm writing a case study on Move the Frame for my Media Management class on branding at The New School, so it's a good time to take stock and get some comprehensive feedback on what I've been doing.

The survey is really short. It should only take a few minutes to complete, and your feedback will be sooo sooo helpful for me. I've loved all the comments I've gotten on this blog, and I hope that everyone, including readers who are normally too shy to post, will participate in this survey to make your voice heard. Don't worry if you don't know what videodance is, or have only glanced at this blog a couple of times. All information is useful information.

Many many thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Yours in moves and frames,
Anna

Click here to take the survey


Photo: J Why

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 12:22 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 9, 2008

Kinetic Cinema - a great success!

Thanks to all who attended the first Kinetic Cinema screening on Monday. If you weren't there, a large wonderful crowd turned out at Collective:Unconscious in Tribeca to watch seven fabulous short dance films from the Dance On Camera Festival. Two filmmakers attended: Noemie LaFrance, choreographer of two Feist videos (1234 and My Man My Moon both directed by Patrick Daughters) and Charlotte Griffin, director of the film Raven Study. They shared great stories and insights about making films with dance, and a good time was had by all.

Be sure to check out the Feb 4th screening with dance critic and media maven Brian McCormick! Details will be posted here soon...

Here's the Feist video 1234
Notice the lack of cuts - it's all one continuous take!

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 6:12 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 7, 2008

Reminder: Kinetic Cinema/Dance On Camera Festival screening tonight!

Just a friendly reminder about the Dance On Camera Festival screening tonight curated by yours truly for Kinetic Cinema at Collective:Unconscious at 7:30pm.

Featuring seven fantastic international shorts including Feist's music video "1234" choreographed by Noémie LaFrance, Charlotte Griffin's sexy "Raven Study", and Victoria Marks' political duet "Not About Iraq," you're sure to find something to get excited about in this program.

Don't get left out! Make your reservation now before this underground, hipster hole-in-the-wall sells out!

Details:
Kinetic Cinema - 2008 Dance On Camera Festival Shorts Program
Monday January 7th 7:30pm (and the first Monday of every month thereafter)
$5 admission

@ Collective:Unconscious
279 Church Street (just south of White Street)
New York, NY 10013
Trains: A to Canal or 1 to Franklin
www.weird.org
TICKETS: 212.352.3101
VENUE:212.254.5277

Program descriptions:
FEIST - "1234"
Patrick Daughters, USA, 2007, 3.14min
Noémie LaFrance, known for making large-scale site-specific performances, choreographed this award-winning music video for the artist Feist with 45 dancers and a roving camera. (To be introduced by the choreographer)


BLUE
Elif Isikozlu, Canada, 2006,3m
There is a moment when you have neither left the place you're in nor entered the one you're going to. It is the moment just before you play your first note, just before you walk out on stage, just before you tell someone you don't love them anymore. Balanced on the brink, "betwixt and between", BLUE takes place within this moment, within the threshold between silence and sound.



RAVEN STUDY
Charlotte Griffin, USA, 2007, 4:30m
Animated images bookend this abstract fusion of dance and new music capturing the spirit of the Raven within a sleek cinematic canvas. (To be introduced by the director)



ANIMALZ
Sergio Cruz, England, 2006, 3m
A crew of urban B-boys from Brighton go feral in the city's surrounding natural landscapes. The piece was co-choreographed by Strictly Dance Fever's JP Omari with a group of 8-14 year-old dancers.

PANORAMA ROMA
Anna de Manincor, Italy, 2005, 12m
Produced by the artists collective, ZimmerFrei, Panorama Roma is a crossing of performance, visual arts and cinema (reminiscent of the earliest panoramas by Lumiére, Edison, and Alber Khan). A 12 hour performance took place in the Piazza del Popolo in Rome and was recorded by two rotating video cameras. In this naturally elliptic set the camera, as if it were a watch, completes a 360° round in 60 minutes. The resulting footage was compressed 20 times to obtain one hour visible in three minutes. The performers, moving in slow motion, were placed amongst the passersby to depict a parallel world taking place in a different time scale.

PLANT
Olive Bieringa, USA, 2007, 10m
A visceral, painterly and sometimes humorous hallucination amidst the ruins of an abandoned bomb factory in Minnesota produced by the Body Cartography Project. The music consists of found sounds like a bullet rolling across broken cement,  while three men engage in acts of quiet violence, and noisy interaction.

NOT ABOUT IRAQ
Victoria Marks and David Soll, USA, 2007, 12m
"Not About Iraq" questions the relationship between words and experience, government rhetoric and reality. Can dance be a force for social change? Seeking to reconcile civic and artistic engagement, Victoria Marks explores how dance can conjure meaning and action through metaphoric interpretation. 

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 12:18 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 1, 2008

Kinetic Cinema Screening Jan. 7th

Happy New Year! What better way to start 2008 than by seeing some wicked cool dance films and videos? On Monday January 7th at 7:30pm I will present a special program of of international dance film shorts in conjunction with the Dance Films Association's 36th Dance On Camera Festival. This program is part of Kinetic Cinema, a videodance screening series happening on the first Monday of each month at Collective:Unconscious in Tribeca. After the Jan 7th kick-off event I will invite a special guest from the dance community each month to show films and videos that have inspired their work in dance. Come see why dance and film go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter (or champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries)!














Feist's 1234

Kinetic Cinema
Monday January 7th 7:30pm (and the first Monday of every month thereafter)
$5 Admission

@ Collective:Unconscious
279 Church Street (just south of White Street)
New York, NY 10013
www.weird.org
TICKETS: 212.352.3101
VENUE:212.254.5277

For the Dance On Camera Festival program I have selected  seven shorts from among 200+ festival entries that represent some of the freshest new visions by leading dance filmmakers today. The program includes "1234" - an award-winning music video by Feist directed by Patrick Daughters with choreography by Noemi LaFrance (who will be in attendance); "BLUE" - a suspended moment before a pianist begins to play by Elif Isikozlu; "PANORAMA ROMA" - a rotating timelapse film shot over 24 hours in the center of Rome by Italian choreographer Anna de Manincor; "RAVEN STUDY" - a sleek duet between a beautiful Louise Brooks-like dancer and a Rock drummer by Charlotte Griffin; "ANIMALZ" - a crew of urban b-boys from Brighton that go feral by Sergio Cruz; "PLANT" - a haunting exploration of a decaying bomb factory by The Body Cartography Project and Olive Beiringa; and "NOT ABOUT IRAQ" - a dance film that questions the relationship of words and experience, government rhetoric and reality by choreographer Victoria Marks with dancer Taisha Paggett.
Click here for a video preview of Feist's "1234".

Kinetic Cinema explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month I will invite 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 influencial on their work in some way. The guest curators will come from a range of backgrounds as performers, choreographers, critics, and filmmakers. Upcoming guests include Brian McCormick (Feb 4th), Jonah Bokaer (April 7th), Levi Gonzalez (May 5th), and Kriota Willberg (June 2nd).

DFA's 36th, annual internationally touring Dance on Camera Festival & Symposium January 2-19, 2008
DFA's 36th annual Dance On Camera Festival is the oldest dance film/video festival in the world that sparked an explosion of activity amongst artists, curators, writers and a curious audience. The Festival has been co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center since 1996 and has toured to over 70 venues internationally.
For festival schedule, tickets and info: www.dancefilms.org

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 9:06 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

December 24, 2007

Introducing Kinetic Cinema (and reflecting on 2007)

Before introducing my latest videodance venture starting in the new year, I feel the impulse to reflect on 2007 and share some of the experiences that have led me here to the brink of a new jumping off place.



Last January I was the festival coordinator of the 2007 Dance on Camera Festival. I spent several intense months from Sept-Dec 2006 soliciting and receiving entries, coordinating prescreenings, watching almost 200 submissions, and practically living at the Walter Reade Theatre during the first two weeks of 2007. It was a very rewarding experience, but I found that that very few dancers from my community, the New York modern dance community, came out to see the amazing work we were showing. There were many reasons for this, one being that the timing of the festival is right after the holidays, and it always bumps right up on APAP, the biggest gig-getting event of the year in New York. It's hard to compete with a dancer's chance to drum up some income, but I felt that more could be done to bring awareness to dancers of the power of dance for the camera.

In an attempt to address this, I curated a special program of videodance shorts by American artists at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I did this because the work of local and US based artists is generally under-represented in the Dance On Camera Festival outside of the documentary category, and I wanted to attract local audiences by showing work by people they knew. The strategy worked. We had more people than we could squeeze in standing, and we even had to turn some away at the door! This showed me that the community was interested and hungry to see dance for the camera, we just needed to involve them more.

In the spring, Zach Morris (of the Dance Film Lab) and I decided we wanted to build upon the momentum of the Galapagos showing and start a bimonthly dance film screening series. We had huge ideas for programming from showing the greatest videodances we knew of, to programs that showed the entire history of dance film. In May 2006 we produced "Wicked Cool Dance Films" featuring all our favorite films and had a rousing discussion with the audience and filmmakers after the screening. We seemed to be off to a good start. The only problem was that we had no money or time. Galapagos was cheap but it wasn't free, and Zach had too much on his plate to continue. I wanted to keep it going, but I knew that I couldn't do it on my own.

Fast forward to this fall. I started blogging on Great Dance which seemed like the perfect way to spread the gospel of dance for the camera without needing much to get it going. So far Move the Frame blog has been an incredible experience and has opened up many new networks and distribution opportunities for me and my mission. I've made oodles of friends from all over and love the interactivity the blog platform allows. But despite the new connections, I still feel like I haven't been able to address one of the issues closest to home: how to get the New York dance community turned on to videodance.

In October Zach forwarded me an email. It was from Caterina Bartha, the director of Collective:Unconscious a theatre and screening space in Tribeca. She was looking for a curator for a monthly dance film series they wanted to launch in 2008. She had been talking to Deirdre Towers at the Dance Films Association about doing a screening for the Dance On Camera Festival there, but she wanted to continue this as a regular event. Zach declined because his work had taken off in a big way, but he recommended me for the position. My gut reaction was "Yes! This is exactly what I've been wishing for." They were offering free space, a projectionist, admin support, and a regular time slot to do whatever I wanted. But at the same time I was worried I couldn't make the time commitment. I'd be in school part-time, working almost full-time, blogging, and trying to work on my own videodances. Still I felt like this was too good to pass up.

Then I got an idea. What if I took the web 2.0 approach, and made this a user-generated series? If I wanted to attract dancers from my community, maybe I should give them the reigns and let them bring in the work? What media is turning them on? How has it shown up in their performance work? If I could get dancers to think about these questions and share their own ideas perhaps they would see the value of integrating videodance into their dance practice. The idea of Kinetic Cinema was born.

Kinetic Cinema explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month I will invite 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 will come from a range of dance backgrounds as performers, choreographers, critics, and filmmakers. Upcoming guests include Brian McCormick, Jonah Bokaer, Levi Gonzalez, and Kriota Willberg, to name a few.

To kick off the series I'm taking a slightly different tack because it is being held in conjunction with the Dance Films Association's 36th Annual Dance On Camera Festival.  On January 7th, 2008 at 7:30pm, Kinetic Cinema will present a special program of seven international dance film shorts I have selected from among 200+ festival entries. These films and videos represent some of the freshest new visions by leading dance filmmakers today. The program includes "1, 2, 3, 4" a catchy music video by Feist with choreography by Noemi LaFrance (who will introduce her film), "PANORAMA ROMA" a rotating timelapse film shot over 24 hours in the center of Rome by Italian choreographer Anna de Manincor, and "NOT ABOUT IRAQ" a dance film that questions the relationship of words and experience, government rhetoric and reality by choreographer Victoria Marks with dancer Taisha Paggett. (click here for the full program)

On February 4th dance critic and founding board member of nicholas leichter dance, Brian McCormick, will present a program of videos and films that have been integral to his life with dance. Brian is particularly interesting because he comes from a background in video art which led him to dance. His first introduction to movement-based arts were through the experimental videos of Bill Viola, Mary Lucier with Elizabeth Streb, Shirley Clarke, and Joan Jonas. I've haven't explored this type of work very much myself, and I'm looking forward to learning just as much from his program as the audience will.

Although the series hasn't started yet, I already feel like it is fulfilling an important mission that began for me over a year ago with the Dance On Camera Festival. By galvanizing the local community and linking our efforts with the world community via the web and other forms of media, some large scale shifts can happen. The revolution will not be televised, but I will do my best to blog about it, and hopefully all the small actions by dancers and filmmakers happening around the world will link up and become a great wave of change sweeping the dance world into the 21st Century!

If you are in the New York area on the first Monday of the month, please come see what's playing at Kinetic Cinema. Screenings will start at 7:30pm. $5 admission.

Collective:Unconscious
279 Church Street (just south of White Street)
New York, NY 10013
www.weird.org
TICKETS: 212.352.3101
VENUE:212.254.5277

Kinetic Cinema is part of The Collective for Loving Cinema Series, a weekly themed-film series curated by Anna Brady Nuse, Stephen Kent Jussick, Matt Kohn and MM Serra and presented by Collective: Unconscious. Each week of the month has a specific theme: Week 1 - Kinetic Cinema (Dance on Film), Week 2 - Experimental Queer Film (MIX @ C:U), Week 3 - Speakeasy Cinema (a mystery film with post screening talk back with various film luminaries!) and Week 4 - Jewels and Gems (the best of the Filmmakers Co-Op) . The Collective for Loving Cinema Series is supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Posted by Anna Brady Nuse at 1:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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 at 9:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)