Dance on Camera Ezine
May-June, 2008

2008 EMPAC WINNERS OF DANCE MOViES COMMISSIONS!

"Sunscreen Serenade"
photo by Kriota Willberg

Photo by Claire Le Pichon
choreography Noemie Lafrance
Noir 2004
(c) Sens Production

EMPAC – the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - announces the four recipients of the 2008 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. Chosen from a short list of 28 projects by an international panel of dance-film practitioners, curators and producers, the projects range in format, style and emotional tone: from single-channel video installation to 16mm film, from the spectacular to the surreal.

The projects will receive awards ranging from $7,000 to $40,000 and will be premiered in the fall of 2009 at EMPAC. EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission 2008 Recipients are:

"Body/Traces" by digital media artist Sophie Kahn and choreographer Lisa Parra (US). A single-channel video installation reanimating 3D laser scans of the body in motion, resulting in a ghostly imperfect trace of the dancer's movement at human-scale.

"Eyes Nose Mouth" choreographed and conceived by Noémie Lafrance, directed by Patrick Daughters (USA). A dance film in which one take follows a single figure, streaming through fast-changing and surreal environments, ceaselessly swept forward in the flux of urban time.

"Looking Forward - Man and Woman" directed by Roberta Marques, choreographed and performed by Michael Schumacher and Liat Waysbort (Brazil/Holland). The third film in a trilogy experimenting with the reversing of movement and time in video and dance, while creating mind-binding illusions in partnering while on a Sunday walk on the beach.

"Sunscreen Serenade" directed and choreographed by Kriota Willberg, sound by Carmen Borgia, illustration/animation by R. Sikoryak (US). A global warming-themed Depression-era musical spectacle populated by scantily costumed hand puppets.

The selection panel comprised Leonel Brum (Brazil), Lynette Kessler (USA), Christina Molander (Sweden), Laura Taler (Canada), Hélène Lesterlin, dance curator at EMPAC, and Johannes Goebel, the director of EMPAC.

The DANCE MOViES Commission is a program launched by EMPAC to support the creation of new works in which dance meets the technologies of the moving image. As the first major commissioning program for dance film established in the US in 2007, it is already having a significant national and international impact. The four film projects commissioned last year will premier at EMPAC’s upcoming opening celebration in October 2008.

The Commission is supported by EMPAC’s Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and the Performing Arts. It is open to artists based in North and South America who are making video, film and installation work. For more information, including the work selected for the short list, please visit www.empac.rpi.edu.

*** CALL FOR CO-PRODUCTION ***

NU2’s (in collaboration with TV3 and Generalitat Catalunya) has commissioned Isabel Rocamora to make a new gestural short film entitled PROMISE OF FALLEN TIME. Rocamora is seeking co-production partner/partners for the project.

HORIZON OF EXILE won IMZ Dance Screen ‘Best Screen Choreography over 15 mins,’ the Hague 2007; a Choreography Media Honors Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement,’ and a ‘Jury Special Mention’ at Il Coreografo Elettronico, Naples 2008.

PROMISE OF FALLEN TIME, directed and choreographed by Isabel Rocamora with photography by Nic Knowland, will be an 8 minute film on the fear of loss; a poetic fiction built on gesture. Through the aged bodies of a man and a woman Promise explores our vertiginous sense of dread of loosing that which we are most attached to: a partner, our faculties, life. The project is to enter pre-production in September, 2008 and be delivered by December 30, 2008. Please write rocamora@mac.com and visit her site
www.isabelrocamora.org

Michelle Mola wins The 2008 Susan Braun Award for Young Choreographers Initiative

Michelle Mola, a 2007 graduate of The Juilliard School, will create a dance for the camera with a grant from DFA and guidance from mentors. Unanimously chosen by DFA's 2008 team of mentors, Michelle demonstrates a distinct clarity of vision, confidence and artistry. Michelle also received the distinguished Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in 2008 and is scheduled to choreograph for the 2008 Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive. Mola is teaching artist and co-founder of enterCircle international outreach programs. In 2007, she received the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Outstanding Choreography.

Michelle's statement about proposed dance film "Chambermaids and Tuxedo Dances"

"The film journeys as first time movie director Michelle Mola curiously examines quintessential Busby Berkeley style musical sequences inside of the confines of a tight space. By rigging low tech contraptions normally used to get large scale shots created on giant Hollywood sound stages, we are shooting for and with the camera. We are executing complex camera movements, including camera operators as dancers and reversing their roles, we shoot the process and performance, the working class and the opulent, the cast and crew, the Chambermaids and Tuxedo dances. The short film proposes the notion our attention will not be misled by the institutions that oppress us; a series of contact improvisations whose characters each cope by devoting energies to simple pleasures, letting imaginations roam free. Our performers, characteristically androgenistic, surf between basic and embellished fashions. Through meticulous fieldwork examination of assembly lines, the reversal of fortune, mundane task and small strategy for survival, Michelle Mola and her creative companions construct and shoot improvisations in their Brooklyn arts studio The Manor.

"We are building for and with the camera simultaneously. There's something inappropriate about opening up the film to capture process and performance and explore turning everything on its head. If there wasn't that element of self identification, it wouldn't be something I was compelled to do. I think the miniature scale will create some interesting results and I enjoy being invested this way in the current workspace."

To learn more and see her videos, visit www.MichelleMola.com

MENTORS for the 2008 Young Choreographers Initiative:
Gwendolen Cates, Ben Dolphin, Hila Shani, Julie Talen, Louis Venosta.

Proliferation of Dance and New media

By Latika Young

This spring has been a prolific season for dance for the camera on the internet. The seed that was planted with the video web-sharing site YouTube has mushroomed into an assortment of new online viewing venues, each with its own unique benefit to the videodance community. From Macfadden Publishing’s new dancemedia.com, to TenduTv, an internet television channel devoted exclusively to screening dance, to the virtually unlimited possibilities in collaborative dancefilm-making made possible by the Kaltura online editing platform, dance for the camera is finally exploding onto the internet. As much as one may appreciate (or not) the amateur aesthetic popularized by the YouTube dorky dance video, the more refined dance film never quite meshed with the vibe of this early video sharing site. With these new options, however, which all materialized over the last few months, dance for the camera is finding a new, more appropriate home for its many offerings.

DFA had the pleasure of learning from Marlon Barrios-Solano, the founder of Dance-tech.net as our partner and consultant. It is due to his vast knowledge and keen awareness of the field that we first learned about dancemedia.com when it was only three days old at the time and about the open source platforms, such as Kaltura. DFA is now examining how best to utilize these new venues to broaden the audience base for dance films and even invite increased participation in the creation of dance for the camera. Below we outline these new endeavors and the ways in which DFA is fantasizing about our involvement.

Dancemedia.com
Set to be launched officially this June by Macfadden Performing Arts Media, the umbrella company behind Dance Magazine, Pointe, Dance Spirit and several other dance-themed publications, dancemedia.com is something like a YouTube that is dedicated exclusively to dance. Marketed primarily to the readers of its various magazines, the site allows members to upload their own videos. Each of the sister magazines have their own “channel” so ballet videos, for example, can be uploaded onto the Pointe channel and instructional videos can be posted on the Dance Teacher channel. But the exciting news for our members is that DFA was given its own channel! So far various short dance for the camera clips and festival trailers have been posted and after only two weeks in not-yet-officially-launched status, the clips have still generated hundreds of hits.

Since these magazines tend to attract younger readers, the feel of the site is also a tad juvenile (when uploading a video, the site exclaims “get ready to make your debut!”); at this point most of the video clips veer towards the recital tape end of the spectrum and many in the videodance world might feel uncomfortable placing their own creations in this forum. But the site and DFA’s channel is a perfect opportunity to reach hundreds of young dancers whose awareness of dance for the camera might be minimal or even non-existent. Already, one dancer has commented that she loves the short clip of TAP HEAT that is available for viewing and she wants to see more. This is an audience that DFA had wished to target for the past several years. At one point we even flirted with the idea of creating a DVD specifically designed as an educational tool that could be sent to local dance studios around the country; of course the costs for such an undertaking would likely be insurmountably prohibitive. Luckily, now dancemedia.com provides an optimal platform perfectly poised for attracting these young audiences and potential creators via the online medium with which these youth are so comfortable. As the website develops it will be intriguing to observe how the Dance Films channel continues to be received.

TenduTv
One of the more promising companies looking to expand the global reach of dance programming is TenduTV (tendu.tv), which recently announced a distribution deal with broadband television provider TidalTV. As a result, TenduTV will have a presence alongside top content brands such as CBS, The Food Network and National Geographic, marking the first large scale deal of its kind for the dance industry. TenduTV will present dance performances, dance films, documentaries and original dance related programming, and will feature both established and emerging dance companies and filmmakers interested in distributing their work on the channel and the company's download partnerships. TenduTV is also collaborating with non-profit advocacy organizations, such as Dance/NYC, in order to implement industry-wide best practices in order to help its current and potential content partners effectively take advantage of marketing and revenue generating advanced media opportunities. Although no firm decisions are in place, one idea is to present film highlights from the previous Dance on Camera Festival in the fall during the lead-up to the following festival.

The possibilities with this type of Internet streaming are quite limitless as more and more people are becoming accustomed to watching films over the Internet. Netflix, the rental service provider that had traditionally sent DVDs through the mail, is shifting their offerings toward more web-based distribution. Many of their titles can now be watched instantly online and they just recently launched a relatively cheap ($100) television box that allows Internet-streamed video content to be transmitted to a television screen. Internet media can now be watched on the home entertainment system comfortably ensconced on a couch instead of in front of the computer in the home office. Viewers also no longer have to wait three days to receive their DVDs in the mail. As one user, Chuck Tryon, has written on FlowTV (an online critical forum on television and media culture hosted by the University of Texas at Austin), this new ability to watch instantly on Netflix has actually inspired him to watch film more frequently and to be “more willing to take chances on certain movies.” His viewing selections are now much more spontaneous, either chosen randomly by browsing Netflix’s offerings or by following recommendations from the many film blogs and postings sprouting up from the burgeoning online film community. Tryon attests that this new Netflix service has been increasingly significant after his recent move to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where his access to watching film in the movie theater and his offerings at the local DVD rental store were quite limited.

With this shift away from the DVD and towards an ease and accessibility in watching media online, as TenduTV will allow, one may imagine the possible eventual impacts on the film festival. Perhaps the traditional film festival will begin screening online premires or even entire programs curated specifically to be viewed at home instead of in the theater? TenduTV would offer this same system of instant gratification that viewers increasingly think of as standard. Why wait until your beloved dance company comes to your city for a live performance (if you are even lucky enough to live where dance companies can afford to tour)? Just like the film viewer who has little access to diverse film content in his hometown or even just wants to watch a specific movie, right now, these shifts in distribution may also prove necessary for the dance world. If we are having trouble filling the seats in our theaters for dance performances or film festivals, perhaps we need to bring our offerings to where the audiences are—at home watching media through the Internet.

Perhaps Internet television/media watching may breed a lazier audience member (why should I go to the theater or even walk to the mail box when I can watch this movie by pushing one button on my computer?), it is also, at least in the case of some viewers like Chuck Tryon, leading to a more educated and involved media watcher. With the new capabilities to watch instantly on the site, I also find myself being even more spontaneous in my decision-making—there is nothing to lose since there is no limit on the number of videos one can watch instantly within the month. One can imagine, and hope, that TenduTV might also inspire the same type of exploration for its audiences. Perhaps one viewer subscribes in order to watch theatrical ballet performances but then may stumble upon AMELIA (by LaLaLaHuman Steps) and fall just as in love with its warped spaces and perspectives, intricate precision, contemporary ballet choreography, and its art of the frozen glance. Dance for the camera has often been pushed to the peripheries or even ignored completely by the theatrical dance world, but TenduTV has the potential to place both on equal footing. It is also possible to imagine that dance for the camera may continue to inspire increasingly more rigorous and refined practices for filming and capturing these live performances—the time of the one-camera performance footage shot from the back of the house is surely a relic of the past. TenduTV subscribers will expect to see beautifully filmed dance, whether it be a performance or a dance for the camera. (For an example of similar Internet television channels and a benchmark partner of TenduTV, please visit tidaltv.com.)

DFA IS ITS MEMBERS!
Buy a membership for a friend, renew your own.
Sell Annual Reviews in your area.
Review a book or film that would interest members.
Organize a screening or set up a dance film lab in your area.
Send us suggestions of what you need!

(continuation for article on new media)

Kaltura Interactive Video Platform

Although the hope is that both Dancemedia.com and TenduTV will expose dance for the camera to larger and more diverse audiences, the next online videodance venue would, in theory, spark even greater creative activity and collaboration within the dance for the camera world. Kaltura (kaltura.com) is the “first open source platform for video creation, management, interaction and collaboration.” Described by many as “Wikimedia meets YouTube,” it is an online interactive video-editing platform that allows for collaborative video making. Any user can post video material and any user can either post additional material or revise or edit the existing material. It is available for free on personal sites or blogs. Plus, businesses can partner with Kaltura to utilize the platform on their own sites. Kaltura has recently partnered with Wikimedia to provide collaborative video functionality to Wikipedia’s 207 million visitors.

DFA's Board has agreed to a partnership with Kaltura but details about our partnership with Kaltura and Dance-tech.net are still being sorted out. What would an interactive dance for the camera platform look like? Would users even utilize the service currently or does it need time to become popularized through sites like Wikipedia first? Would it eventually invite global collaboration and participation from those who might not normally be interested in dance or who may be underrepresented in the dance for the camera dialogue?

We are exploring some ideas to kick off creative solutions on the
Kaltura platform. As part of our educational efforts, we have considered offering classes in editing for dance for the camera. One of the articles in the Dance on Camera Festival Annual Review, “Screen Design” written by Betty Jenkins, included a practical exercise for shooting/editing a dance for the camera. We had envisioned even creating a mini-course with an accompanying DVD with common moving images that participants could use to complete the editing assignments. But a DFA-hosted Kaltura solution could be the perfect forum for a course like this. All types of moving images—moving bodies, rippling water, rushing traffic—could be uploaded to Kaltura and a curriculum could be created that offers editing assignments that employ, manipulate, and revise these common clips. A course like this could be perfect for high school and college students and an ideal complement to our Susan Braun Initiative that targets this age group.

This is just a glimpse of what is possible with these new online dance video forums. At such an exciting time we strongly encourage our members to write us with feedback and suggestions. Start a page on dance-tech.net, upload your videos. Get involved. As a dance filmmaker or viewer, how do you like to have your dance for the camera fix?

KINODANCE RETURNS TO RUSSIA & ARMENIA

6th St. Petersburg International Dance Film Festival KINODANCE will take place in St. Petersburg, Russia - November 20 - 29, 2008.
The festival, curated by Alla Kovgan, will welcome Alloy Orchestra and Paul Kaiser and Marc Downie from the Open Ended Group. The festival is made possible in part by the grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding (New York) as a fiscal sponsored project of DFA.

2nd Yerevan Dance Film Festival KINO-PAR will take place in Yerevan (Armenia) December 1-13, 2008. The festival will offer a two week worshop/master class taught by Alla Kovgan and Alissa Cadone for the filmmakers and choreographers from the Caucases and Central Asia interested in exploring dance film collaborations. The festival is curated by Alla Kovgan. The festival will also host screenings and lectures of David Hinton and Alla Kovgan in October of 2008. This project was made possible through grants from (OSI) Soros Foundation, The British Council, and CEC Arts Link.

VANAJA - MEMBER DISCOUNT FOR DVD!

Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, VANAJA is a touching coming of age story of a young girl who dreams of learning Kuchipudi.

"A beautiful and heart-touching film! One of the 5 best foreign language films of 2007!" Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

Rajnesh Domalpalli's debut feature is the winner of over 24 awards at more than a 110 film-festivals worldwide, and won Best Debut at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007. Watch a trailer at www.vanajathefilm.com

To redeem a special 10% discount on the DVD price visit store.emergingpictures.com and enter the code: BABU10

Workshop in France

THE SALIGNAC FOUNDATION is pleased to host their Summer Courses, in the southwest of France, from the 23rd June through to the end of August 2008. Disciplines Offered: Contemporary Dance (Cunningham-based), Dance for the Camera, Video Production, Digital Editing. 5 and 10 day workshops.For further information, see www.vimeo.com/846033 and www.salignacfoundation.com or e-mail salignacfoundation@worldonline.fr

The Worst of the Best:
Kinetic Cinema Gets Down

THE BENTFOOTES

by Latika Young

Before taking a hiatus for the summer, Kinetic Cinema, the dance films screening series curated by Anna Brady Nuse, went out with a bang! “The Worst of the Best,” a night of “bad” dance film, as selected by guest curator Kriota Wilberg, featured an array of clips and excerpts that had the audience at Tribeca’s The Tank in stitches. With everything from undulating nude males to jete-ing serial killers to an over-the-top 80s spandex extravaganza, there was something in the selection to please even the most well-versed bad dance connoisseur.

The night began with a little live dance, as Brady Nuse exploded onto the stage in a frenetic version of the classic dance from “Flashdance” complete with gold metallic hot pants and matching shoes. A perfect entrance, it warmed up the audience’s belly laughing muscles and set the tone for an evening of the dance cliché as encapsulated on film.

Wilberg, co-director of THE BENTFOOTES, which premiered at Dance on Camera Festival 2008, has been interested in bad dance for some time. She used to host bad dance film screening parties at her apartment for fellow dancer and choreographer friends (what better way to build a supportive dance community—we may be struggling in our own careers, but at least we are not making dance like that!).

Wilberg developed somewhat tricky criteria that determined her selections for this “tour of surprisingly bad dance films from the early 1900s to the present.” As she explains, there is a difference between “bad” dance and just “boring” dance. Bad dance necessarily “provokes a strong emotional reaction” in the audience, and, as Wilberg points out, these are more often than not the dances people end up discussing fervently with friends. Boring dance, on the other hand, “is just dull” and is easily forgotten. Where it gets tricky is with the question of production values. For Wilberg, even boring dance, with a big enough budget, becomes bad dance by virtue of the unrealized potential of its grandiosity. Any otherwise boring dance film with a large enough budget enrages Wilberg to the point that it has elicited a strong emotional response and thus qualifies as a truly bad dance.

The screening began with a video montage of clips culled from the internet of dances intended to demonstrate “boring.” All low production value, the clips may have come from YouTube or artists’ personal websites, but they certainly were not from Hollywood blockbusters. The original videos likely go on for what must feel like many very long minutes, but edited down into a quickly paced montage, they were not really that boring after all. Instead, the curatorial process of cramming them side by side and positing them into humorously crafted sub-categories, such as “Women and Their Hands,” “Semi-Clad Undulating Duets,” and my personal favorite, “Nude Men Kinetically Recumbent,” highlighted their humor rather than their boredom. Fortunately, though, the audience was saved from having to watch any of the clips in their entirety. Anyone who has sat on a dance film festival pre-screening committee can undoubtedly understand.

The bulk of the offerings, however, were clips from films released on the big screen and each example was selected to provide a more nuanced understanding of Wilberg’s definition of bad. The gem of the night, glittering in decadent ridiculousness, was Ben Hecht’s 1946 film SPECTRE OF THE ROSE. Choreographed by Tamara Geva, Balanchine’s first wife, the two dance scenes presented were performed by Ivan Kirov. An attempt to combine a murder mystery with classical ballet, the result, at least to modern eyes, comes across more as camp than refinement. In the first scene, the male ballet superstar (Kirov) has been confined to bed for two years after killing his first wife. Suddenly feeling better, he is inspired to dance, performing ebullient feats of jete and pirouette that are made that much more incredible (and farcical) considering his extended period of inactivity (perhaps, instead, we should feel relieved he did not join the ranks of the “kinetically recumbent nude male” as we witnessed earlier). The second scene has our star re-entering a state of insanity and struggling with his desires to kill his second wife. Fortunately, derangement does not deter our protagonist from his dancing tour de force and, with knife in hand, he catapults about the room, balletically crashing into walls, before leaping with pointed feet through a glass window, to his certain death below. This is a bad dance film made so by both its delicious anachronistic ballet moves (likely quite magnificent for the time but which seem highly dated to the modern viewer) and its equally ridiculous backstory.

Other choices from the evening included THE MOTHERING HEART, the 1913 D.W. Griffith film that features background dancers, undoubtedly quite common on the vaudeville stage of the time, who appear as gallivanting Isadora-nymphettes and a leopard skin toga-ed couple who awkwardly perform Lindy aerial moves, STAYING ALIVE, the sequel to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, as directed by Sylvester Stallone (and, yes, Travolta does wear a very Rambo-eque headband), and scenes from the film everyone loves to hate, Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 SHOWGIRLS, which is just bad in so many divine ways.

Wilberg wants to know, “What is the worst dance film ever?” To share your favorites, or most hated, e-mail her at info@duramater.org and be sure to tell her why. After a summer break, Kinetic Cinema returns in October. E-mail Anna Brady Nuse at anuse@speakeasy.net to get on the mailing list.

TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund Call for Entries
Sloan Foundation will provide up to $140,000 in support of innovative and compelling filmmaking that explores scientific, mathematical, and technological themes and storylines, or a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, innovator or mathematician in fresh ways. Seeking exceptional narrative work of all genres (except science fiction or fantasy) with scientifically accurate themes or characters.

Selected projects from eligible directors, screenwriters and producers will be announced in Fall 2008 and highlighted at the Tribeca Film Festival in May 2009. In addition to funding, grantees will receive professional guidance and industry exposure as needed. Deadline is August 1, 2008. Visit www.tribecafilminstitute.org for complete details. Payal Sethi, Manager | TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund
(212) 941-2459; psethi@tribecafilminstitute.org

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation ("MAAF") will focus on media arts for its Creative Fellowships in 2009 that support nine artist residencies. Each state and jurisdiction served by MAAF will be represented by an artist-in-residence at an organization from within the mid-Atlantic region equipped with the facilities necessary to support the creation of media artwork, completion of ongoing projects, or the exploration of new technologies, methodologies and forms. Residencies will take place between July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010.

Selection will be made by MAAF based on those organizations that best meet the following criteria: Facility must be located within one of the following states and jurisdictions served by MAAF: (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, West Virginia)

Must have an established residency program for media artists with an existing, clearly defined selection process (curatorial or application- based); access to appropriate facilities and equipment for media artists; trained staff available to provide technical assistance for media arts residents, if necessary.

See the website for full requirements http://www.midatlanticarts.org
Contact Joanna Raczynska by July 14, 2008 at 410-539- 6656 ext 101; Joanna@midatlanticarts.org.

Lois Greenfield's CELESTIAL BODIES

Exhibit on through August 31, 2008 at Dance New Amsterdam, NYC

Lois Greenfield has photographed dance for the Village Voice, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and other publications since the 1970s and has published several books and calendars featuring her work. Celestial Bodies features 16 dancers solo and in pairs working in collaboration with Ms. Greenfield to create an exhibition that features suspended motion, reflections, fabrics and spectacular dance technique. April 30-Aug 31, DNA, 280 Broadway, 2nd fl (entrance 53 Chambers). Lois Greenfield has agreed to be a Jury member for Dance on Camera Festival 2009.

Shall We Dance?

Columbia University hosts Shall We Dance?, co-sponsored by DFA, three nights of live dance instruction and documentary dance film screenings. Shall We Dance provides an intergenerational environment to celebrate and expand one's connection to dance!

Samba class on June 13, 2008

Friday, June 27, 2008, 6:30pm
Dance Style: Bomba
Instructor: Alexander Lasalle of the group, Alma Moyo
Film: BOMBA: DANCING THE DRUM (56M)
Summary: 2001 documentary about the legendary Cepeda family, known as the patriarch family of bomba, and their struggle to keep the bomba tradition alive in Puerto Rico. Bomba is Puerto Rico's richest musical expression of its African heritage. Now being celebrated in “Puerto Rican Music Roots and Beyond” supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the National Endowment for the Arts.For more information about Bomba, visit the site of William Cepeda.

Thursday, July 24, 2008, 6:30pm
Dance Style: Hip-Hop
Instructor: Buddha Stretch
Film: FROM MAMBO TO HIP HOP (55M)
Summary: 2006 documentary by Henry Chalfant tells a story about the creative life of the South Bronx, beginning with the Puerto Rican migration and the adoption of Cuban rhythms to create the New York Latin music sound; continuing with the fires that destroyed the neighborhood but not the creative spirit of its people; chronicling the rise of hip hop from the ashes and ending with reflections on the power of the neighborhood's music to ensure the survival of several generations of its residents, and in the process, take the world's pop culture by storm. Depicting two different styles of music that were nurtured in the neighborhood (mambo) and born there (hip hop), the film shows how members of this Bronx community, especially Puerto Ricans, influenced and were inspired by them.

DFA Board Nominations

Shahla Kayoud, long-time Board Member has resigned after ten years serving DFA. We appreciated her help designing our website, launching our web presence, and her guidance of our publications and flyers. Shahla is currently consumed with her new venture, Celeste Guesthouse, a new bed and breakfast in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Please direct your recommendations to:
DFA Board President Betty Jenkins
BettsJenkins@verizon.net
845-417-5405

DFA’s Board communicates by e-mail for fiscal sponsored projects and meets quarterly to decide the winners of the post-production funds and discuss new projects. If you can recommend anyone with legal or Internet experience, that would be ideal at this time. Thank you for your input.

September Dance for Camera Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Dolphin

 

 

Call For Registrants

Director/Cinematographer/Choreographer Ben Dolphin will lead a 6.5 hour Choreography for Camera workshop on September 13, 2008. Intended as an introduction to empower choreographers to work on their own or with a cinematographer, the workshop will explore the basics of dance filmaking vocabulary and techniques in a hands-on workshop.

Dolphin, a dancer/choreographer turned lighting designer, turned cinematographer/director, taught a course called Choreography for Camera at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Dance Dept for 14 years. This workshop will be held on a professional filmstage, courtesy of Cine Magic Stages which has graciously offered to waive its $2,000 daily fee in Soho (210 Elizabeth Street) and participants will be able to take advantage of this wonderful resource.

The course will make choreographers comfortable with the language of filmaking and will cover the entire process of realizing a film, from preproduction to editorial finishing. Topics such as lens selection & properties, time compression and extension, point of view, creating an arsenal of shots to ensure adequate coverage during the Editorial process, storyboarding, Camera Movement, different editing options, cutting on a movement and final format selection will all be addressed.

For more info and to register, please e-mail info@dancefilms.org.

Excerpts from “Dancing with Phantoms” by Kevin H. Martin, an article about Ben Dolphin’s most recent project, the dance film “Arising” that
combines eight dancers and an eight-foot waterfall. Excerpted from the International Cinematographers Guild Magazine, June 2008.
http://icgmagazine.com/2008/june/dancing.html

“Since Dolphin’s first career was in dance and he later taught a class in choreography for camera at the NYU School of Arts while working his way up through the production ranks, he had feet firmly planted in both worlds, which inspired his original notion for an artistic high-speed presentation. “I thought of using Vision Research’s Phantom cameras for a live-action performance, collaborating with dancers choreographing nano-speed events while interacting with an eight-foot wide waterfall and fire elements. The years spent as a high-speed and liquid specialist caused me to fall in love with the subtle surprises and revelations that emerge at high frame rates. I planned to capture with a pair of cameras, then immediately play the event back via rear projection behind the dancers. I figured on speed-ramping the action from fifteen to thirty seconds in length on playback. Then I’d stage another live-action nano-event and begin layering these in playback before the live audience...his exciting notion—a kind of live show equivalent to timeslice/frozentime/bullet-time multi-tasking—soon received a setback. “In order to generate interest in the live performance, I needed to shoot a spec piece first,” he says.

“Dolphin’s concept for “Arising” (originally, "Making the Invisible Visible") starts “In a kind of prehistoric time, when people are undifferentiated; the group of dancers is like a landscape of bodies. Through movement, they start to make inquiry into themselves. Each dancer arises to confront a truth, with the element of a water barrier challenging them.

“With this predilection for color, it is perhaps no surprise that the cinematographer names Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC as his favorite DP. “I agree with his notions about color and its emotional impact, and how we are influenced by it on a sub-intellectual level,” reveals Dolphin. “My visual arc on Arising went from low and dark to high and light, in keeping with the chakras, starting with red and progressing to violet. Even my shot list was color-coded, which helped communicate to both cast and crew where we were all supposed to be at any given point in terms of emotion and evolution and performance.”

Watch “Arising” at http://icgmagazine.com/2008/june/dancing.html

DFA's Dance on Camera On Tour

2008 showings confirmed to date

Jan 31 ......................Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Feb 16-17 .................University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Feb 22-23 .................University of Rochester, NY
March 17 ..................University of Utah, Salt Lake City
March 31-April 18 ......Galerie Michel Journiac, Paris, France
April 3-6 ....................Wisconsin Film Festival, Madison
April 9 .......................Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
April 13-14.................Circle Cinema, Tulsa, OK
April 13......................VIII Dance Festival Kielce, Poland
April 17......................Washington Center for the Arts, Olympia
April 25......................Texas Tech University, Lubbock
April 28-29.................SE Louisianan University, Hammond
May 9-13...................Jacob Burns Center, Pleasantville, NY
May 16......................Aurora Picture Show, Houston TX
June 18-27.................Philadelphia Dance Projects, PA
July 5........................Colorado College Dance Festival
July 12......................University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
July 27-August 1........Coreografico Int'l de Danza, Burgos, Spain
July 23- 27.................Dominique DeLouche at Walter Reade
August (tbd)...............Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga
Aug 29-Sept 6............International Ballet Festival of Miami, Florida
September 5..............Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
September-Nov..........Beijing Dance Academy
Octobr 8, 22..............Ohio State University, Columbus
October 28, 30...........Hedwig Dances, Chicago, IL
November 5...............Hampshire College, Northampton, MA
November 20-29.........Kannon Dance, St. Petersburg, Russia
November 14-16.........Rochester Dance on Camera Festival

Visit dancefilms.org/Touringmain.html for links to specific program details

DFA CALL FOR ENTRIES

Good to read...

LIVENESS: Performance in a Mediatized Culture
by Philip Auslander
Addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media? Since its first appearance, Philip Auslander's ground-breaking book has helped to reconfigure a new area of study. Looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport, and courtroom testimony, "Liveness" offers penetrating insights into media culture, suggesting that media technology has encroached on live events to the point where many are hardly live at all.In this new edition, the author thoroughly updates his provocative argument to take into account new digital and media technologies, and cultural, social and legal developments. In tackling some of the last great shibboleths surrounding the high cultural status of the live event, this book will continue to shape discussion and to provoke lively debate on a crucial artistic dilemma: what is live performance and what can it mean to us now? Anna Brady Nuse writes, "His analysis of how media has effected live arts is spot on. Every performer should read this, but especially performers who use or make media." 2008 pages January, 2008 Published by Routledge.

"Maynard and Jennica" by Rudolph Delson, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2007, optioned for a film by Scott Rudin has a short film description that begs to be choreographed. Book starts slow and picks up around page 80. Very entertaining.
www.rudolphdelson.com/maynardandjennica/

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Success for the creators of FLYING LESSON

Besides winning the Jury Prize for FLYING LESSON, the creators of this short, Rosanne Chamecki and Andrea lerner received the Prize
For Best Experimental Film From Brooklyn International Film Festival, sold it to WNET to be part of Reel 13 Shorts/REEL NEW YORK and received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation