Think ‘dance on film’ and think Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers. Think Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, the graceful leaps of Billy Elliot, Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, or the ballroom scene in Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark, where the camera glides through dancers as though itself a participant. Outside narrative demands, too, film seems a suited medium for capturing movement. It is, after all, a medium based on 24-frames-per-second movement, and one which has the potential to take the dance form into new dimensions.
National Dance Agency, South East Dance, will this weekend present a ‘Dance 4 Camera’ programme as part of the Brighton Festival. Entitled Making Waves, the programme will celebrate Brighton dance filmmakers and other dance film artists from around the world, and include video installations, an audience with international dance filmmaker Thierry De Mey, and the presentation of a new £8,000 South East Dance film commission. South East Dance Director Linda Jasper says the Brighton Festival provides a significant setting for a dance film showcase, because of the concentration of dance film talent in the region.
‘As a National Dance Agency, we are known for our work in dance film,’ she says. ‘Obviously, we need to respond to local needs, and, while we have a very broad portfolio, we focus on dance film and video, because Brighton is home to a number of media agencies and we have a lot of artists here who want to work across media.’
Some of those artists, and their films, will feature in the Making Waves international screening session, along with other short dance films from Australia, The Netherlands and New Zealand. According to South East Dance, the selected films demonstrate ‘a range of stylistic approaches reflecting the experience and interests of choreographer/directors.’ Jasper believes this diversity signals the potential for dance to appeal to a wider audience.
‘We’re finding audience interest [in dance film] is growing,’ she says. ‘In Brighton a few years ago, we would have been struggling to get 30 people into an auditorium for a session of dance shorts, but we’re expecting about 300 for the international screening this weekend. [Something like this] is far more entertaining, diverse and interesting than a lot of live work, because you’re getting a whole variety of artists’ statements, ideas and approaches. In live work, you’re often seeing the ideas of [only] one choreographer.’
But Jasper believes the general appeal of dance film lies also in its novelty. ‘It’s the novelty of seeing dance in a different landscape and from a different perspective,’ she remarks. ‘In a live performance, your eye can wander and you can watch whatever part of the performance you want, or you can watch something else in the auditorium. In film, that’s hard to do because you’re in a blackened room and you’re seeing absolutely what the director wants you to see. I think film is a very precise medium [for dance], and [one which] captures the essence of what the artist wants to convey at a particular moment.’
While Jasper finds interesting the fact that dance movements on film are ‘seen completely from the point of view of the choreographer’, she notes also that the medium works to challenge traditional notions of dance creation.
‘You do have to change the choreography quite dramatically to be successful in this medium,’ she says. ‘Most live works have improvisation and other techniques which don’t translate easily to film, and I think dance practitioners need to get used to choreographing for camera and performing for camera… Choreographers really have to relinquish some of their control of the creative process [in order to] work in the intimately collaborative process of making dance film.’
Brighton choreographer and filmmaker Shelly Love agrees. Love, whose six-minute film Scratch will feature in the international showcase, says the greatest difficulty in working with the film medium is that ‘originally I am a choreographer and a dancer.’
‘The process of making live work is very, very different from the filmmaking process,’ she says. ‘Apart from the practical stuff – equipment and crew and time-scales and money – I don’t really agree [with the differences]. I like to push the processes I’ve established as a choreographer and apply it to film. What I’ve come up against is that suddenly I am working with a film crew and, while I don’t want to let go of improvisation or “chance” or “happy incidents”, it can make working in the new form very stressful.’
Love says she is attracted to the film medium because ‘it allows me to work a bit more closely to my ideas and imagination.’
‘I think the camera can act as a magnifying glass for the choreographer, and bring the audience closer to things that the choreographer might see in movement but otherwise would be missed in live work,’ she says.
‘I also think [dance film] is interesting because you’ve got this hybrid form which brings a broader audience. There are people watching dance film without realising it’s “dance film”, and suddenly they’re viewing dance from a different point of view.’
So will dance film mark the way for the future of the dance form? ‘I think more traditional dance audiences want to see the form stay “true”, in a traditional sense,’ says Love. ‘But I think that as long as somebody is dealing with movement and saying something, I’m happy.’
At South East Dance, Linda Jasper says funding and lack support for artists working in the dance film genre are major barriers still to be overcome.
‘I see enormous growth in technology and that has really democratised the whole area [of dance filmmaking],’ she says. ‘But in terms of development and opportunities to really amass ideas, I think that’s where we’re experiencing capping. It’s hard to find new ways of making those needs felt.’
Making Waves will run at the Brighton Festival, May 17-18. For further information and programme details on the festival, which runs until May 25, CLICK HERE.