Some Personal Thoughts on Dance For Camera…

Learning to choreograph the camera like I choreograph the dance

For me, going to the cinema is an experience. There is something magical about it; sitting in the dark watching the art unfold before your eyes in large scale - I feel consumed, engulfed by its artistry. I have always loved movies, yet my love for the art of film began over a decade ago. I was starting my first master’s degree, living in Rochester, NY, and I came across a small indie movie theatre called The Little. This place quickly become my place of reprieve and retreat. Since then, every new place I move, I seek out smaller, independent movie venues and festivals. I always knew why I liked certain films over another, I often noticed how they were being filmed, but I never had the vocabulary, knowledge, or background to begin to articulate it. At the same time, I was faintly aware of screendance/dance for camera – I knew it existed, I had been a part of a few small projects with other artists, yet I never entertained the idea of combining these two interests until….

I was bitten by the screendance bug… During my time as an MFA Candidate in Dance, I was able to get a taste of this genre. Having been exposed to the foundations of film theory, history, and practice, I am better able to situate myself within this medium.

In my discovery I’ve begun to see a symbiotic relationship between filmic and live dance when considering the elements of composition that are both essential and intentional. I consider how the techniques of making dance for film transfers to the making of live dance works. Composition in choreography, filming, and editing is about choice making. For screendance specifically, it’s about making intentional decisions about the choreography in relation to the camera. Screendance is also inherently collaborative – you are negotiating camera, composition, and dance simultaneously.

The most shocking discovery to date, however, is my love for editing. Early on, I was taken back by how easily I could cut raw footage that wasn’t well suited to the film without any second thought. At first, this was in stark contrast to my relationship with editing in the live dance medium. However, editing amidst the making of live works is now a tried and true tool in my choreographic tool belt, which I attribute to my experience with and behind the camera. In doing so, what I find is that I’m learning to let go and to listen to the work unfolding – allowing the ideation to drive the final product, not just the raw material. This acquired skill has informed my art making processes.

Dance for camera is yet another creative outlet where I quite literally reframe the viewing experience.

Filmic Works:

In devotion, in reverence to place, history, and self. Filmed in Corciano, Perugia, Italy

*Official Selections: Wicklow ScreenDance Laboratory (2022, Ireland) & The Greensboro Dance Film Festival (2021, USA)

This short film seeks to embolden and embody intimate responses to extinction in the time of the coronavirus. We are suspended in a perpetual waiting period yet mourning what we once had and questioning what we may have lost forever. This work was selected and premiered as a part of the University of North Carolina’s Art Truck’s Virtual Exhibition, The Social Body: Exquisite Imagination, organized through the School of Art. Artists were asked to consider the contemporary moment and the social body: what does this body look like and how does it respond?

Filmed in a semi-distressed alley way, I was drawn to the deterioration of this space, but also its life – the stark contrast of the greenery, the plants and vegetation sprouting in the most unusual places and spaces, as if defying its fate – a refusal to crumble in such turmoil. The physical responses to the environment are the embodiment of this very notion as we navigate the current world. It represents an initial, careful attention to leaning in, a desire to connect, yet slowly evolves into an orbit of confusion, leading to physical frustration, an unraveling of sorts. I find myself asking, what do we need to get through all this? In the end, there is only one way out, and that is through…. so turn off and tune in: safety glasses are needed beyond this point.

A dance film made in the Adirondack Mountain of Upstate New York. When the world was faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation ensued. This work is a quiet, responsive meditation on my personal process of coping. It reflects my desire for tactile connection with the earth, my curiosity and hope for the future; an homage to my surrounding environment, my return to nature.