Dance’s Duet with the Camera

Telory D. Arendell • Ruth Barnes

Editors

Dance’s Duet with

the Camera
Motion Pictures
Editors
Telory D. Arendell Ruth Barnes
Missouri State University Missouri State University
USA USA

ISBN 978-1-137-59609-3 ISBN 978-1-137-59610-9 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59610-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939228

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 PREFACE

We spoke first about the possibility of this manuscript in a backyard full

of grass, bugs, and a fervent desire to let film and dance speak in a stage
conversation that gives equal weight to each of these media. Our collabo-
ration follows on the heels of Douglas Rosenberg and his 2012 Oxford
University Press publication, Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image.
And yet, whereas Rosenberg approaches this duet from a more filmic
perspective, we ourselves are more firmly located in the dance space. As
should be clear in our own text, a choreographer who employs video for
production makes physical movement primary to the creation of all prod-
ucts. Film is therefore an equal partner in this dance, but it is most defi-
nitely a dance we present rather than a screened image. We say this with all
due respect to Rosenberg, whose efforts are duly noted and appreciated as
seminal contributions to the field. We want merely to offer another set of
perspectives as practitioners and scholars committed to dance’s contribu-
tion to the duet that is relatively recent in dance and film, both on stage
and on the printed page.

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Missouri State University Graduate College, Provost, and Department

of Theatre and Dance have provided financial and moral support.
Faculty and peers at the University of California, Riverside, Dance
Department stimulated and challenged my understanding of screen dance,
thereby encouraging me to explore a new path of research.
Dance Base (Edinburgh), 87 Dance Productions (North Carolina), the
dancers, and composer Dmytro Morikyt devoted time, space, and creative
energy that helped me make new objects for study.
– R.B.

To my extended family.
– T.D.A.

vii
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction: Dance and Film as Siblings 1

Telory D. Arendell
Screendance: A Short History 2
Dance on Screen: Genres and Media 3
Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image 5
Rosenberg’s Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image 7
TAKES as Multimodal Dance 8
Dance and Film in Conversation 10
Site/Sight and the Body 10
Movement Beyond the I/Eye 11
Querying Praxis 12
Bodies, Spaces, Camera 13
New Technologies: Dance as 3D’s Ultimate Agent 15

Part I Site/Sight and the Body 17

2 Location, Location, Location: Dance Film and Site-Specific

Dance 19
Melanie Kloetzel
Origin Stories and Parallel Aims 20
A New Context for the Dancing Body 22
Altering Perspectives on the Body (in Place) 27
Democratizing Genres 32

ix
x CONTENTS

Conclusion 40
References 46

3 The Feminist Body Reimagined in Two Dimensions:

An Exploration of the Intersections Between Dance Film
and Contemporary Feminism 49
Cara Hagan
Where Do We Stand? 49
Putting Culture into Context 50
Kitchen Table: Engaging in Contradictions Makes Statements 52
Movies by Movers 55
Confessions of a Lacking Pursuit: Vulnerability and Defiance 58
Yellow River: Challenging the Constructs of Imposed Identity 60
MORE: Contesting a Culture of Hyper-Productivity 62
Well Contested Sites: Radical Creativity and Activism 63
In Conclusion: An Invitation for Further Dialogue 65

4 Hollywood Cinematic Excess: Black Swan’s Direct

and Contradictory Address to the Body/Mind 69
Frances Hubbard
A Phenomenological Cinematic Psychosis 70
Overwhelming Proximity 72
Vertiginous Intertextuality and the Prefiguration of Doom 75
An Intense Auditory/Bodily Experience 77
An ‘Infernal Vision of Patriarchy’: Gratifying (or Subverting)
the Male Gaze? 81
A Complex Negotiation Between Misogyny and Feminism 84
Reinvigorating and Exploiting Lesbian Clichés? 86
Conclusion: A Feminist Phenomenological Assault 88

Part II Movement Beyond the I/Eye 95

5 Loïe Fuller and the Poetics of Light, Colour, and Rhythm: Some

Thoughts on the Making of fugitive l(i)ght 97
Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof
Biographical Notes on Fuller 99
 CONTENTS xi

Serpentine Dance 101

Fugitive l(i)ght 103
Loïe Fuller’s Mysterious Image 106
Stéphane Mallarmé 108
The Dancer as Poet 109
Julia Kristeva’s Opposing Drives: Revising Specular Modalities 113

6 Naked Came I/Eye: Lights, Camera and the Ultimate

Spectacle 119
Peter Sparling
DEVANT and DERRIÈRE 120
Screendance as Spectacle 120
Video Postcards 122
Double Life 124

Part III Querying Praxis 127

7 Theoretical Duet 129

Telory D. Arendell and Ruth Barnes

8 Wrestling the Beast… and Not Getting Too Much Blood

on Your Skirt: Integration of Live Performance and Video
Projection 141
Heather Coker
Live Performance and Projected Performance 142
The Effect of the Screen 145
Tracking the Beast 147
What Does ‘Live’ Mean? 148
Focus, Timing and Content 149
Focus 149
Scenic Design 150
Timing 150
Content 152
Intentions to Overcome the Beast 155
Feedback on Audience Perceptions 155
xii CONTENTS

9 Turning Around the Gaze in the Age of Technological

Proliferation; or, Things Are Seldom What They Seem 159
Ruth Barnes
Which Mixed Media: And Why? 160
Shifting Outlooks 161
The Observer and Ambiguity 162
Other Possible Perspectives 164
Illusion and Reality: Interpreting and Creating Meaning 165
Reception Near and Far 166
Earlier Works: And the Spectator’s Gaze 166
The Performer’s Gaze 167
Camera Work 168
Representation and Relationship in Dance 170
Simultaneous Contradictions: Tricking the Gaze 171
More Questions 171

Part IV Bodies, Spaces, Camera 173

10 Videodance: How Film Enriches the Dance 175

Angela Kassel
Space, Time, Body 176
Editing 177
Space and Environment 178
Perspective 179
Framing 181
Dance Seen from Below 182
Split Screen 184
Time 186
Body 187
Layering 188
Duplication 189
Duplicating the Body 189
Fragmentation 191
Role of Coincidence 192
Animated Figures 193
Conclusion 193
 CONTENTS xiii

11 Maya Deren: Leaping Across Frames and Framing Leaps 199

Telory D. Arendell
Dream Logic: Surrealists Versus Imagists 200
Meaning and Analysis 201
Framing the Body 202
Contextual Melding 202
White Chess Piece 203
Multiple Selves 204
Meshes and Multiples 205
A Turn Against Psychoanalysis 207
Physical Memory and Relational Gravity 208
Conclusion 209

12 Valentine for Dance Historians: Astaire on Film 211

Carol-Lynne Moore
Film, Movement, and Dance: An Uneasy Relationship 212
Either the Camera Will Dance, or I Will 213
Roberta (1935) 215
Easter Parade (1948) 217
Silk Stockings (1957) 219
Conclusion 220

Part V New Technologies: Dance as 3D’s Ultimate Agent 223

13 Moving In(To) 3D 225

Philip Szporer and Marlene Millar
Breaking a Cycle of Ephemerality 226
Pioneering Spirit 227
Stereoscopic Image 229
Movement as Basic Substance of Cinema 230
Consequences of 3D Technology 231
Eisenstein and Wenders 232
Medium of Imagination 233
Dance as Organic Fit 234
xiv CONTENTS

14 Conclusion: Where the Gaze Lands 239

Ruth Barnes
A Journey in Mind and Body: Video into and Out of the Glass 240
A Five-Minute Mixed Media History Lesson 241
So Much to Watch 242
Mixing Moves 243
Site and Sight 244
Promenade Performance 244
Three Dimensions 245
People, Dancing 247
An Interdisciplinary Duet 250

Bibliography 253

Index 259
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Telory D. Arendell (co-editor) is Associate Professor of Performance Studies in

the Missouri State University Department of Theatre and Dance. Her publications
include Performing Disability: Staging the Actual (2009) and The Autistic Stage:
How Cognitive Disability Changed Twentieth-Century Performance (2015).
Ruth Barnes (co-editor) is Professor of Dance in the Missouri State University
Department of Theatre and Dance. Her recent mixed media choreographic work
includes A Proper Container (2011—in collaboration with Vonda Yarberry and
Sheryl Brahnam), Homing/In (2008) and On Reflection (2004).
Heather Coker is a choreographer and filmmaker who makes personal work com-
bining the media of dance and film into a collage of memory, imagination and
subjective reality. She choreographs and directs for the stage and screen. Her piece
Pretty Good for a Girl combines video projection and live performance, bringing
past and present, approximate and specific into visual conversation while following
an experimental narrative structure. She earned an M.F.A. in Dance from UCLA’s
Department of World Arts and Cultures.
Cara Hagan is Assistant Professor of Dance Studies at Appalachian State
University. She is a professional artist of many genres, including dance, film, story-
telling and community engaged art. Hagan has presented her work across the
United States and abroad on stage, on screen and in educational settings. The
recipient of several awards, her most recent award is the 2014/2015 North
Carolina Arts Council Choreographic Fellowship. In addition, she is founder and
curator of Movies By Movers, a film festival dedicated to the celebration of the
conversation between the camera and the moving body.
Frances Hubbard completed her (AHRC-funded) PhD in Film Studies in 2014,
and worked as a full-time teaching fellow at the University of Sussex, UK.  She

xv
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

teaches across a wide range of Film Studies modules, at both undergraduate and
postgraduate levels, and is currently teaching at Brighton University. Hubbard
holds a BA (Hons) in Drama and Film Studies and an (AHRC-funded) MA in
Film Studies. Her research interests are interdisciplinary in nature, mainly focusing
on the sensuous, kinesthetic experience and analysis of film, particularly screen-
dance. She is interested in how dance (and/or choreographed movement) can
enhance a film’s agency and its ability to cross time and space, “touching” the
viewer and thereby working to transform historical objectification and liminality
into embodied interaction. Her doctoral thesis, “Screendance: Corporeal Ties
Between Dance, Film and Audience,” examines a range of screendance genres,
from avant-garde feminist film, to a Spanish flamenco trilogy, experimental short
films, and popular Hollywood cinema.
Angela Kassel is a teacher of Dance and certified Pilates trainer in Germany. She
studied at the Dance Academy in Rotterdam before earning a Master’s degree in
Theatre, Film, and Television studies at the Academy for Music and Dance at the
University of Cologne.
Melanie Kloetzel is Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, and holds an
MFA in Dance from the University of California at Riverside in addition to a BA
and an MA in History from Swarthmore College and the University of Montana,
respectively. Kloetzel is the artistic director of kloetzel&co., which she founded in
New York in 1997 and which has traveled with her across the US and now into
Canada. Since its inception, kloetzel&co. has moved between theatres and more
unconventional sites, seeking out distinctive spaces and artistic collaborations
along the way. Her research has been presented at/published in numerous jour-
nals and conferences and her anthology, Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure
of Alternative Spaces (2009), is edited with Carolyn Pavlik.
Carol-Lynne Moore is Director of MoveScape Center in Denver, and has been
involved in the field of dance and movement analysis as a writer, lecturer, and con-
sultant for over 30 years. She is the author of Movement and Making Decisions
(2005), The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music, and Dance According to
Rudolf Laban (2009), and co-author with Kaoru Yamamoto of Beyond Words:
Movement Observation and Analysis, 2nd edition (2012).
Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof is Assistant Professor at the School of Image Arts and
a member of the graduate programs in Communication and Culture, and
Documentary Media at Ryerson University. Her doctoral work at York concen-
trated on identifying the feminine aesthetics in the avant-garde cinema and body
art by drawing on Julia Kristeva’s and Luce Irigaray’s theories on vanguard poetry
and language. Izabella’s films and videos have screened internationally and have
received several awards.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

Peter Sparling is Thurnau Professor of Dance at the University of Michigan and

an active independent dance artist. As former principal dancer with the Martha
Graham Dance Company (1973–1987), chair of the University of Michigan
Department of Dance from 1988 to 1993, and Artistic Director of Peter Sparling
Dance Company since 1993, he has had extensive experience as a director, chore-
ographer, performer, teacher, lecturer, video artist, writer, collaborator, adminis-
trator and dance/arts consultant.
Philip Szporer and Marlene Millar have been immersed in the Canadian dance
world for many years. Currently, Szporer teaches in the Contemporary Dance
department at Concordia University and is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Jacob’s
Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts. In 1999, he was awarded a Pew Fellowship
(National Dance/Media Project), at the University of California, Los Angeles. In
2010, he was the recipient of the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize awarded by the Canada
Council of the Arts. Montreal filmmaker Marlene Millar created her first award-
winning film The Woman and the Sink in 1989. Millar received her BFA in Film
Production from Concordia University, studied at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago and in 1999 received a Pew Dance Media Fellowship at the University
of California, Los Angeles. In 2001 Philip Szporer and Marlene Millar co-founded
the production company Mouvement Perpétuel, directing and producing
acclaimed arts documentaries and dance films.