Understanding The “Dance” In Radical Screendance

Abstract

There was a time when screendance implied a dancing body. The “dance” may have taken the shape of formal vocabulary or a looser interpretation of movement as dance, but common to either approach would have been the sight of humans in motion. Certain recent screendance films, however, such as David Hinton’s <em>Birds</em> (2000), Becky Edmunds’s <em>This Place </em>(2008), and Constantini Georgescu’s <em>Spin </em>(2009) are void of human presence. Yet whilst screendance making revels in the freedom of reconceptualization and reinvention, questions arise with regard to the experience of viewing, namely: what is the “dance” in screendance now that the human body has left center stage, and do audiences have the requisite concepts to identify and appreciate works that have outgrown traditional models? This paper investigates just what is required of viewers’ perceptions that might allow them access to screendance today. It also explores the field’s current relationship with dance<strong> </strong>through an analysis of those works that lie at screendance’s outermost edges, which here shall be referred to as “Radical Screendance.”

Art in Motion: Current Research in Screendance edited by Franck Boulégue and Marisa C. Hayes, Cambridge Scholars Publishing

“…Art in Motion reinforces existing tensions in the discourse on identity, ownership, and past histories, which has already been examined by Carroll (2000), Pearlman (2010), Pottratz (2016), Guy (2016), andHeighway (2014).2 The collection of papers from different schools of thought provokes additional questions with regards to the relationships between avant-garde film, expanded cinema, performance, fine art, dance, mainstream film, choreography, and screendance. Claudia Kappenberg's paper draws parallels between expanded cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, and the ongoing identity crises surrounding screendance today.…”

Testing ground: evolving screendance practices and theories and the Leeds International Film Festival Screendance Competition

“…and, a related query, whether audiences are equipped to "identify and appreciate works that have outgrown traditional models." 18 She considers how viewers might access screendance today, both literally and conceptually, and offers an analysis of "works that lie at screendance's outermost edges," which she calls "Radical Screendance." 19 For Heighway, traditional screendance is that which uses the screen to present the dancing body.…”