DANCE VIDEO: Choreography Workshop
Our dance workshop with Rachel started off with some screenings to better understand the context of dance film and music videos. These films were:
- "The little lost child" 1894
- "Dance Serpentine" by lumiere brothers
- "Pas De deux" 1902
- "The magic lantern" by George melies 1903
- "Alice in wonderland" 1903
Allot of older films treat dance as if its happening on a stage
In newer films an important part is camera movements and how they follow the dance.
Dance split in to two ideas: entertainment and conceptual
- Busby Berkeley 1930 Aesthetically pleasing patterns with a big number of dancers Focused on entertainment
- Mary wigman 1929 Conceptual, self indulgent.
Dance in earlier films moving image was main focus due to lac of sound
As sound came in acting and singing to over as the main medium of communicating
Modern dance artists continued on with their work but their main concern was of dance was made specifically for film
Then we were questioned to observe the role of dance and write some personal notes on the following films:
- "Mached" by lxd I like the fact that they are using objects Emotions
- "1234" by Feist Looks cool, reminds me of Berkeley, dance feels a bit out of place though
- "Sunrise" by Yeasayer Good use of camera movements, has a nice concept Cuts follow the dance
- "Choreography Reel" by Tamara Levinson Quite bold movements, visually interesting Black BG doesn't distract from the dance
- "Rosas danst rosas" by rosas Very precise Movements
- "Ghostcatching" by Bill T Jones, Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar Visually very stunning Good idea to visually race the movement Cutting edge technology for the time
- "Guns and horses" by Ellie Golding Too many separate things merged together superficially Dancers and singer a bit out of place
After that we jumped in to some basic movement workshops ourselves, in groups, to better understand how dance may be manifested. We were assigned in rough groups, however me, Lucy, Joel and Shahid combined and formed an idea that we are thinking of using for our final piece.
Our idea is about a person who is living a mundane life, and is in a room or an office, moving in a repetitive and boring fashion. Suddenly his reflection in the mirror tries to disrupt this repetitive pattern and convince the real person to "live life" and break free from this repetitive movement.
Trying out our idea with the professional dancers was extremely useful, and may even be a starting point for our final piece.
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