Hi all
couldn't agree more with what Doug and Hélène are saying here.
What i regret, of course, is that there is indeed very little
critical and sustained debate, even here, on new works or on
festivals and curatorial frameworks.... or relations for screen
dance or new dance involving screens/projections or developing
mixed reality performances. There are a host of new issues that
have arisen,
perhaps not necessarily for choreography-for-camera- productions
(screendance), but for "choreography" or postchoreography as such,
for capture technologies, for movement as digital (data)
processing, for play/performance in virtual environments or worlds
(Second Life has become a screen world too, and I see performances
happen therein), for dance with wearables (wearable screens and
flexible materials, garments, surfaces, media skins,
architectures), within the digital and real-time processing worlds,
within networked tele-plateaus.
I don't think there is much debate here on these pages, anymore.
Our maillists have become feeble bulletin boards, occasional news
items, announcements, and the dance-tech list also is in such a
strange lull, a silent phase of no debate or exchange of
viewpoints (last summer, Mark Coniglio invited feedback to his
latest video/performance/site specific project, but I think the
piece was shown/displayed on a blog site or YouTube and
commentators left their viewpoints there-else, ; i think Marlon
Barrios Solano also mentioned to our community a few times that he
had done intereviews, and that was very informative and helpful and
is to be commended, but I think these interviews and podcasts then
are stored or displayed on blogs , and our attention and our
reading/writing/communicating further dissolved/dissiciated and
distributed.
(I seldom read blogs any more as i have simply not time to follow
up all the blig links i get sent),.
so debate and controversy, as we still had it in the summer and
fall of 2006 after a series of postings, has now been replaced by
acquiescence? and our globalized standards of promotional
etiquette (.."superlative descriptions"...)? --
i can't quite make sense of the silence either, except that demands
on our time and on production / R&D / and research (and on writing
the superlative press releases and writing the grants to have funds
to make something can be released and superlatived) have increased ..
surely there are planty of issues to discuss, and new workshops,
international labs, festivals and encuentros, as well premieres of
new works are happening all the time -- announcements of
interesting gatherings in Portugal and Spain just reached us.
After the Moves Screen Choreography Conference in Manchester (June
2007), i had also suggested to Simon and others that it would be
good to have a review of the conference and the festival, so others
who were not there, as well as the participants, could share some
critical reflections on what was said and presented. There were
some highlights, and some weak points as well, and the conference
had an academic feel to it that surprised me -- could have been the
environment. Universities lecture rooms tend to have a strange
effect on art, and on dance, Has any review been forthcoming?
Could we hear a counterreview of the festival (review) that sparked
Doug's reply?
regards
Johannes Birringer
DAP Lab / Dans Sans Joux
West London
UB8 3PH UK
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
-----Original Message-----
From: Media Arts and Dance on behalf of Helene Lesterlin
Sent: Thu 11/1/2007 3:12 PM
To: MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: london dance film festival link
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Hello MAD,
I have to second that comment! I too read the article and was
disappointed and dismayed with the level of analysis and discourse.
I also looked at the program being shown in the festival and found it
to be uninspiring, full of superlative descriptions (the best ever
seen on the screen) that only diminished the seeming worth of the
works, and with very little attempt to present what is a burgeoning
genre with new works made all the time. There seemed to be little
interest on the part of the curator and in the article in truly
experimental works. I am revealing my bias here of course, but I
think there are many many artists creating work that has nothing to
do with Fred Astaire or Edouard Lock for that matter. And there are
ways to talk about and show that work which open up potential
audiences to new experiences rather than, as Douglas says,
reinforcing stereotypes. Here here!
Helene Lesterlin
EMPAC
On Nov 1, 2007, at 11:02 AM, Douglas Rosenberg wrote:
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Dear MAD community,
After reading the article and interview with Sandy Strallen at
http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=6207 that Simon
forwarded to us, I feel compelled to comment. The article puts
forth a view of dance film that is historically inaccurate, skewed
toward a Hollywood model an one that exhibits a complete lack of
understanding about film and media art culture in general. In
short it furthers an agenda that pits the commerce of art against
the art of experimentation. To state that,
"Part of the "problem" of recent dance on film is that it has often
been a refuge for mediocre choreography using clever angles and
lighting to fool audiences into thinking that we're seeing
"dancefilm" .
is to simply rephrase the similar argument that was directed at the
painting of the abstract expressionists, (for instance) ie, "my
child could do that". Without making any attempt to quantify what
constitutes "good chorography" (is it ballet?) the text reinforces
a modernist ideology about the work of art and genius that we know
to be suspect at best. I could go on, but I urge you all to take
this polemical set of poorly researched non-arguments to task. It
is difficult to tell which are the statements of Sandy Strellen and
which are the words of the interviewer/author, but taken as a
whole, the article irresponsibly reinforces cliched stereotypes and
hackneyed observations. I hope to continue this conversation with
some of you at the upcoming OSVD at Findhorn.
Best to all,
Douglas Rosenberg
On Nov 1, 2007, at 8:32 AM, simon fildes wrote:
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In case you didn't have a closer look at the programme and some
background.....
http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=6207
http://www.riversidestudios.co.uk/cgi-bin/season.pl?f=London%
20International%20Dancefilm%20Festival%202007
Simon Fildes
Lecturer in Media Arts and Dance
School of Media Arts and Imaging
Duncan of Jordanstone
University of Dundee
07813 714951
01382 385250
www.imaging.dundee.ac.uk
www.left-luggage.co.uk
www.videodance.org.uk
www.move-me.com
www.hyperchoreography.org
www.screendance.org
http://videodance.blogspot.com
