Continuing the Conversation Erin Brannigan’s Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image Book Review by Terry Sprague As we continue to piece together the puzzle that is the ever-emerging genre of dance on film and video, Erin Brannigan provides us with a foundational piece of that puzzle in her recently published Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image (2011). Brannigan re-frames and weaves together the writings of dance and film theorists and historians to construct what can be considered dancefilm’s origins, early history and development. In particular, Brannigan addresses issues related to the objective, formal elements that comprise dancefilm such as the nature of the close-up shot, gesture and its relation to text-based, narrative storytelling as well as abstract movement. The majority of the dancefilms she discusses were created in the early- to mid-20^th century along with some works from the 1970’s -1990’s. Thoroughly researched and elegantly written, Dancefilm proposes an “interdisciplinary terminology” and offers a model for discussing dancefilm as a form. It is less successful in shedding light on how dancefilm generates meaning and operates ideologically. A significant contribution of this book is how it charts the concurrent birth of modern dance and the cinema in the early 20th century. Brannigan builds a case for ways in which this period of “intense innovation” was likewise the moment when dancefilm was being invented (20). She traces dancefilm’s roots to the works of innovators such as the Lumiere Brothers, Isadora Duncan, Francois Delsarte and, to a greater extent, Loie Fuller.   For Brannigan, Fuller is the “logical precursor” of Maya Deren, to whom an entire chapter is devoted. Deren’s works and writing, along with those of Yvonne Rainer, provide terminology and the historical framework for Dancefilm. Of particular interest are Brannigan’s discussions of Deren’s cinematic strategies. “Vertical film form” describes non-narrative, “poetic film,” which does not progress “horizontally” with the logic of a narrative. “”Depersonalization” refers to the situation in which performers become figures “across whom movement transfers as an ‘event,’” and who are subsumed into the choreography of the film as a whole (101). In a chapter devoted to the close-up shot, Brannigan analyzes the ways in which close-ups in dancefilm have offered profoundly different perspectives. She uses as examples early cinema, silent film, Adam Roberts’ Hands, Anthony Atanasio’s Dust, Trisha Brown’s Watermotor and Man Ray’s Emak Bakia to illustrate ways in which close-up shots can tend toward the abstract; transform the inanimate; anthropomorphize; and challenge centralized, stable hierarchies. She coins an expression for close-up dancefilm shots: “micro-choreographies.” On one hand, what we see in a close-up shot is not “micro”: if the image is a body part, that part fills the screen. On the other hand, “micro-choreographies” aptly describes the ways in which dancefilm finds choreographic material even in the smallest and most subtle movement of bodies and objects. In a chapter on the musical, Brannigan writes eloquently about how dance generates a verticality that overrides the linear drive of the form, and about how the body of the film star links the various elements of the filmic performance. However, this chapter also exemplifies what is missing in many of her discussions. Brannigan’s clear, detailed descriptions of performances by Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and Ginger Rogers lack recognition of the gender issues generated by those performances. Commenting that Rogers is light on her feet, making her “easy for Astaire to maneuver,” she describes how Rogers shadows Astaire, never breaking away “into her own steps as Astaire often does.” Even a middle-of-the-road feminist might yearn for some discussion of the meanings generated by those performances (148). Dancefilm’s focus on form more than content/meaning is also revealed in this statement: “short dancefilms of the last two or three decades, which have been discussed as revolutionary, are only recent arrivals to – and draw directly from – this heritage [the musical]” (144). The examples she uses include dancefilms such as Pascal Magnin’s Reines d’un Jour (1996). Reines does indeed feature formal elements such as dancing bodies and music, as musicals do. However, the ambiguity in the implied narrative, the way gender is represented, and the overall aesthetic differ greatly from those of commercial Hollywood or Broadway musicals. At a time when the number of books written about the field of dance on film and video can be counted on one hand, Brannigan’s recent publication is a significant contribution to the field. She has provided us with an historical context, terminology and other tools for discussing dancefilm. She has assembled a particular cast of theorists, historians, choreographers, filmmakers and dancefilm artists. She has provided a platform upon which further development of screendance can spring. Can we now step forward, respond to and acknowledge her offering, and continue the conversation?   Body of Water: Video installation and live performance by Dawn Kramer and Stephen Buck at Pozen Center and Godine Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA, June 3-4, 2011 Review by Debra Cash A dappled chameleon lingers among granite boulders. A water lily’s pale face brightens a stream of dark water secreted within a hidden cleft. A ripple of fabric seems to unfurl and crash against the face of a rock wall above white surf. Glimpses of color, of light; all of these moments are revealed to be a dancer’s body flashing impermanently within a natural world that can, and will, endure with or without her. Boston intermedia artist Dawn Kramer and her partner Stephen Buck created a video-amplified installation for two evenings at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in early June. Kramer is a professor in the Studio for Interrelated Media at MassArt, and since the 1980s has been part of a team that periodically has taught “Performance in Videospace.” In a program that designated half of its proceeds for Japanese disaster relief, Body of Water dealt less with the tsunami, flooding and climate change of recent years than with the ways humans take the availability and purity of water for granted at our own eventual peril. In the darkened Godine Family gallery, Buck’s videos, executed with Mark Coniglio’s Isadora software, established the mood of nature’s eternal cycles with a full, coral-tinged “Moon” rising and setting unhurriedly through a sky far from the lights of habitation. Next, a tree at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine fractured and churned kaleidoscopically, as glimpses of the dancer’s arms and fingers joined the tree’s branches in the webbing of a natural mandala. Eventually Kramer welcomed her guests into the main auditorium where small-scale “video haiku” played on each of four walls like independent, cardinal references. Empty glass bottles – just waiting for messages! – bobbed from her earrings; her remarkable, just-this-side-of-glamour fishscale dress, executed by Sara Marhamo of the Industrial Stitchers Guild, was composed of crushed plastic bottles. We were invited to pull slips of paper from a jar. Inside were a series of water-themed haiku that could certainly do double duty as psychologically insightful fortunes. I got: “Dew evaporates/And all our world is dew/So dear, so fresh, so fleeting (Issa).” Created on the Maine coast, in the grove of a Massachusetts yoga center called Westwoods, on the wind-scoured cliffs of Nervi, Italy (where Kramer and Buck spent time developing material at the nearby Bogliasco Foundation) and in three exquisite temple gardens in Kyoto, Kramer and Buck’s quiet, single-channel videos recalled Anna Halprin’s aesthetic terrain. These were primarily images made in solitude, recorded by an “invisible” observer for an audience that might be physically remote or emotionally estranged from the natural setting, and touched but never completely distorted by an edge of surrealism. Kramer has said she was interested in playing with scale in these vignettes, but that wasn’t conveyed by the Mass Art installation. Instead, one had a keener sense of the camera’s closeness or distance from the dancer’s body than of the vastness or detail of the natural setting. Kramer then took to the room’s proscenium for a brief solo performance. Sometimes humorous, sometimes merely elaborately colored by the moving projections, she turned upside down like a starfish, bobbed along as if pummeled by brilliant moving droplets from a spewing fountain, and was dissolved in the streams pouring ceaselessly from a row of identical faucets. Kramer’s dancing has always been an idiosyncratic mix of fussy gesture and linear alignment – she often seems to be thwarted, grasping at something just beyond her reach. Here, the expansiveness of the environment made by the video imagery – different forms of water, closely observed rocks, and finally, the vision of a parched desert — reinforced the sense of her presence in a natural world that could absorb and vanquish her. Debra Cash, a longtime Boston-based dance critic, presents audience engagement talks throughout New England and is Scholar-in-Residence at the Bates Dance Festival. C 2011 Debra Cash Gabriela Dumitrescu On Choreographing Roland Emmerich’s ANONYMOUS, interviewed by Tanja Meding Gabriela Dumitrescu holds a BA in dance from the London Contemporary Dance School in London After graduating from LCDS, Gabriela worked as a dancer, very soon beginning to choreograph her first pieces. She moved to Berlin and began working as assistant director for a number of theater and opera directors at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and other prestigious theaters. In addition to other projects, she choreographed “Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald” at Stadttheater Basel for renowned director Fred Berndt. In 2005, Dumitrescu choreographed dance scenes for Gabriela Tscherniak’s independent feature BERLIN NIGHTS. Since 2007, she has owned and directed a dance school for children Die KinderTanzSchule. In addition, Gabriela is the proud mother of three children and co-author of a historical novel. She continues to study ballet with master teacher Jo Siska. In 2010, Gabriela choreographed several dance scenes for ANONYMOUS, the latest feature by Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) which was filmed in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany. Longtime DFA member Tanja Meding met with Gabriela to talk about her experience working for a Hollywood director and her thoughts on staging dance for the screen. How did you get involved with ANONYMOUS? In 2007, Christian Leonhard, artistic director of the Berlin-based Shakespeare Company Berlin (SCB), staged “Romeo & Juliet”and invited me to choreograph several scenes for the the piece. SCB`s actors are incredibly versatile. They always work with live music and the entire cast sings and plays all sorts of instruments. The company is very curious and open to learning new skills. And so it was very rewarding for me to work with them and include dance and stylized movement in the piece. In January 2010, I received a phone call from Christian. He told me about Roland Emmerich’s latest feature film production ANONYMOUS that was going to be filmed in Berlin with some of SCB’s actors to be cast in smaller roles for the film. He said he would like to recommend me, as the production was looking for a choreographer. I met and interviewed with co-producer Kirstin Winkler as well as British theater director Tamara Harvey – who staged the different theater scenes in the film – and was offered the job. What was your assignment? I was asked to choreograph two scenes in the movie: a dance at the Court of Queen Elisabeth and the dance scene in “Romeo and Juliet”. Because ANONYMOUS is a historical thriller about Shakespeare and the question of who really wrote all his famous works, the film contains many different scenes from his vast body of work. Theater director Tamara Harvey was hired to stage the theater scenes for the film and was my point person. We had discussed that the choreography had to be historically accurate. How did you go about researching and creating your material? During my studies at LCDS I took a course in historical dances taught by Belinda Quirey, a world-known expert of historical dances. I have always been interest in historical dance, so my research for ANONYMOUS was extremely enjoyable. Plus, my studies with Belinda Quirey also helped me to know what to look for. I was able to find all the original manuscripts by Renaissance dance masters Arbeau, Negri and Caroso online. I seriously wonder how anyone did research with tight deadlines before we had the internet! Once I had decided on a number of possible dances, I contacted Claire van Kampen, musical adviser for ANONYMOUS. Claire Tamara and I decided on “Branle du chandelier”, a dance that at the time was something of a hit at Queen Elizabeth’s court. As its title suggests, the dancers hold candles or torches in their hands, passing then on to one another as the dance progresses. I really wanted to work with candles, but had to do without them, as they created a problem for the camera. For the “Branle du chandelier”, dancing master Arbeau describes a way of holding and moving the arms that is very unique in Renaissance Dance and offers endless choreographic possibilities. To make sure I understood Arbeau’s description correctly, I contacted a number of academic institutes specialized in historical dance around the world. Luckily, the music for the “Branle du chandelier” was also suitable for the dance scene in “R & J”, which I based on an Italian Ballo – “Il Ballo del fiore” – originally choreographed by Renaissance dancing master Fabritio Caroso. It was important to use the same music for both scenes, because the two scenes are connected with each other in the film: while watching the dance at a performance of “R & J”, the Earl of Oxford remembers a dance at court. I believe that being historically accurate in dance is a matter of instinct. Although we have the original manuscripts, plus paintings from the time depicting scenes of certain dances, that is all we have. Because we were not around during that time and we don’t have any recordings, we can only guess and try to reconstruct. We know, for example, the steps for the “Ballo del fiore”, but we do not really know how they were executed. So, I took the source material and then made it come alive as required by the scene and my interpretation of it. How did you go about staging the piece? And how much did you rehearse with the dancers and actors? The dance at court was the first scene to be shot. After I chose the dance, I decided to keep the footwork as simple as possible, because the actors Joely Richardson (the young Queen) and Jamie Campbell-Bower (the young Oxford) had to act and speak a lot during the scene. And so I choreographed the steps on the text. Reading the scene over and over again, I estimated how many beats of music would go with the words and how many possible camera angles they might shoot. The different arm positions gave the actors a chance to get really close to move away from each other, which was a great dramatic tool. My choreography also had to consider that the script called for dancers to change partners. To make the dance more interesting and to offer more possibilities for different camera angles, I created a rather sophisticated spatial sequence. Having worked as assistant director as well as movement director in theater and opera came in really handy here. At first Assistant Director Chris Doll told me that this scene would take up about one minute in the final film. But after we went through it, I was convinced that it would take at least two minutes. And it did. I had about 5 rehearsals with the German SCB actors, and then the other actors joined in. Unfortunately, Joely had only one single rehearsal to learn the dance! But she was a quick learner and was able to pick up her steps very easily. Jamie had more time to rehearse, so he was able to guide his Queen securely during the shoot. For the “R & J” dance things were a little more complicated. I had to work with a set design that made historically correct renaissance dancing impossible. Five long cloth hangings on the narrow stage of the Globe Theater divided the space into many small sections. I took Caroso’s “Ballo del fiore” as inspiration (“R & J” is set in Italy, that´s why I needed an Italian Ballo) and choreographed a real Italian Ballo for four couples in that space. The challenge was to make the dance work for the actual theater scene (“R & J”) but also for the film situation. Tamara staged Romeo falling in love with Juliet while the dance was going on. In an Italian Ballo there is a lot of jumping and hopping and then, in contrast, very sustained movement sequences. It was (and is) a real art to do this well, and “my” actors were doing extremely well! Did you work on the choreography with the camera in mind? My assistant filmed a few rehearsals. Those recordings were mainly for me to see what I still had to work on, either choreographically or with the dancers. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to speak to anyone about the actual filming. So I had to rely completely on my experience and instincts. How was the actual shoot? The first time I met Roland was when we shot the court dance. We performed the dance for him a couple of times. He talked to his team about the framing, and after that, we started right away. He first filmed the group from above, which looked very beautiful on the screen. Then he moved on to work on the dialogues and details. All of that took up the entire day, but the atmosphere was highly concentrated, very calm, completely professional. It was a pleasure to be part of it. The day before shooting, Roland had decided that he needed two of his actors to join the dance. This meant I had to take out two of the SCB actors or add another couple, to keep the symmetry of the choreography. So Christian Leonhard, SCB’s artistic director and I jumped in. That was a lot of fun, and meant I was had the opportunity to dance my own choreography! When Roland filmed the entire group, I had to rely on my assistant to let me know about any corrections that might be needed. Later on, when Roland was working on the dialogues, I was able to concentrate on my job as choreographer, as well as to reassure Joley and Jamie and the other actors or to give corrections here and there. Did you have a chance to review playback and adjust any moves/choreography for the next take? A lot of adjustments had to be made for the for the “R & J” scene. Not because I wanted to, but because Roland already had really amazing images in his mind for the scene. It would have been great if I had had a chance to talk to him about this scene beforehand. He wanted this scene to be very romantic, mysterious, slow and smooth. My choreography was almost the exact opposite, it was more like a “renaissance party”, very lively with lots of jumping and hopping. The German actors, who had taken great pains to learn these intricate steps, had to drop most of it and basically walk the whole choreography. In the end, though, it worked out just fine. I didn’t feel the need to change anything. You have staged a number of dances for opera and theater – how did this work for film differ from stage work? Choreographing for the screen requires a different approach from working for the stage. In film, you have two dimensions (unless it is a 3D – stereoscopic film); on stage you have three. In film, you can look at the choreography from every angle: from above, the sides, from the front; you can play with the focus etc. And you can use all this to create a 3-D-effect. It is a bit like creating two pieces of choreography: one for the dancers and one for the camera and director. On stage, you do not have that freedom. Or, to say it differently, you have to know exactly what you want to show; you have to be very precise and see it clearly in your mind. For the stage you also have more rehearsal time, because it has to be perfect for performance. When filming, because there are have takes, you can repeat and change as you’re working. For SCB’s stage version of “Romeo & Juliet”, for example, I had time to get to know the actors beforehand and could then tailor the choreography to their needs and capabilities. With different actors, my choreography would have been different. Also, after I choreographed the dance scene, I was asked to work on several other scenes, and help the actors with the use of space and the timing of their movement. That proved to be very helpful for the actors. In ANONYMOUS, there was not a lot of time to get to know anyone, except of course the SCB actors I had already worked with. So I had to rely on my experience of what I knew actors can easily do, dance-wise. Time is a real factor on a film shoot. There are so many variables that have to be right and on time, that the schedule is everything. That makes it less flexible, but also filled with adrenalin. I like the highly concentrated atmosphere during the shoot and the freedom of creating a second “choreography” for the camera. I would love to do more of that. But I also love working for the stage, having all that time and developing things together with the dancers or actors or singers. Ideally, I like to have all of them together on stage. What is next for you? As always, I have a lot of plans and many things I would love to do. For example, I would love to direct a Rossini opera, preferably “La Cenerentola”. Rossini wrote real dance music, and whenever I see a Rossini opera I think: where are the dancers? It seems so obvious to me that dance is a compulsory dramatic element for Rossini. I’d also love to work on “Così fan tutte” – and a few other operas. Last year I started working on a piece titled “A Mother’s Dance”, about mothers and their rhythms and how rhythm is tied to ones feeling of identity. I want to work with dancers, actors, a percussionist and an opera singer. I am currently looking to finance this piece. I am currently choreographing “A Midsummer Night´s Dream” for the SCB. Apart from that, I am busy with Buccarello, a company I founded which offers a luxury service that inspires sophisticated ladies to express their multi-faceted personality by creating their own unique ways of walking. ANONYMOUS will be released by Sony Entertainment September 30th Visit here for more information For more information on Gabriela Dumitrescu. Tanja Meding moved from Germany to New York in 2003 and has worked as a producer for Maysles Films and other independent production companies. Amongst others, she produced SALLY GROSS – THE PLEASURE OF STILLNESS by Albert Maysles and Kristen Nutile. In addition, since 2007 Tanja has been producing and distributing short dance films by Rosane Chamecki, Andrea Lerner and Phil Harder. Postcards from Italy: Making an Effort with Interactive Art by Renata Shepard Renata Sheppard is a dancer, choreographer, and media artist currently enjoying a Fulbright Fellowship in Turin, Italy. Her Fulbright research involves a live interactive performance that will soon become a dance for the camera work in a 3D virtual environment. Exploring sound, Laban Movement Analysis, and choreography as frameworks for the analysis and design of interactive systems, she is integrating these ideas into teaching dance for the camera and Laban for computer animators. In addition to playing with accelerometers and circuits, she is currently falling in love with Italy (again), and embracing her Italian-American roots with frequent gelato therapy. She obtained an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is currently writing a thesis in order to complete her CMA (Certified Movement Analyst) from the Laban Institute of Movement Studies in NYC. Technology is seductive. And as we Float, paddle, and/or Glide down the river of life-as-an-artist, technology is a sexy piece of driftwood that can slip by, provide support, or block our Flow altogether. And “technology” is a trendy word that really should be identified in terms of its appropriate (scientific?) nomenclature. We could be talking about anything from the ever-increasing accessibility to editing software that is driving Dance for the Camera, to tele-immersive environments allowing remote dancers to interact in 3D virtual reality, to the myriad options of open-source and DIY programming tools like Arduino, PD, and Isadora that enable artists to make fun, interactive systems. It’s an expansive, overwhelming, and very, very inviting world. But, before jumping into this pool of wires and sensors here are two hints to borrow from the rules of courtship: first of all, boundaries— the presence of technology should not cloud, obstruct, or distract from your personality and creative voice. Secondly, you have to know when to stop. This is perhaps the most difficult part of loving technology: we invest so much time (and funding) into an idea and sometimes we resist the reality that it just isn’t working. We have to be ready to let go just as we need to know when to hold on. The most important distinction I make with technology and its cross-breeding tendencies with the arts and sciences is the difference between a project’s genotype and phenotype. The nugget of this conversation is about where creativity is felt, which is another way of saying how it is valued. For computers and the programming side of interactive art, the creativity lies in the genotype. The genetic material, the blueprint of the technological experience is usually not seen nor entirely expressed in the final product. For the performing and artistic side of interactive art, this “genotypical” information is present, but what we, the audience, respond to is actually the “phenotype”, the observable, physical expression of this “genetic” information. In my opinion, the genotype of a choreographic work does not matter when it comes to the living performance. If it’s a performance and you want to call it art, the bottom line is the performance itself. And the “genotype” can be the most advanced new accelerometer-based sensor set or years of research on Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic style but in the end, I think today’s audiences have seen enough “genotypically” cool pieces that feature an innovative protocol. Now, they want to feel the interaction, they want it to be “embodied” and resonate with their human experience. In this same thread, the idea of novelty has different weights in different worlds. With programming and computing, novelty means coming up with the next, new algorithmic process to transform this data set into that model of human creativity (for example) but in performance the novelty comes from the afore-mentioned felt experience, the arrangement of this next to that, presented in a way that feels new, different, significant… And this is where my dear friend, Laban and his (and Irmgard Bartenieff’s) Movement Analysis comes into the picture. Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is codified and specific, yet infinitely expandable and applicable; it is theoretical and physically tangible. I guess you could say I was “hooked” from the start considering my introduction was via the legendary Sara Hook at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. It satisfied an aspect of my scientific and logical tendencies but enabled the creative process and improved my dancing… I am not alone in my curiosity and exploration of Laban Movement Analysis as a bridge and enabler with technology. Thanks to my continued Laban education at LIMS in NYC, I am joining in the actively evolving conversation of innovators like Peggy Hackney, Thecla Shiphorst, and Lesli Bishko (among others) in using LMA as a framework to get inside other disciplines and reference its DNA. LMA enables me to think of movement as a resource for translation, giving me words and concepts that fit into a hierarchal structure that resonates with the logical, repeatable lexicon of computer-talk. It’s a framework, an approach, a lens and a valuable reference to the human experience. I have used it as a tool for interpreting user feedback and defining parameters within an interactive system, for the creation of meaningful mappings between data, gesture, and performance environment, and to hypothesize about the audience’s “felt” relationship to the interactive environment. For me, it really has become the lens I use to create an embodied and multi-dimensional experience in my work. My personal approach to technology is one that involves a lot of skepticism, a hint of mistrust, and a constant streaming (heh) of ideas. Especially when you are working in a collaborative situation where C++ meets choreographic design, fear of a “stupid idea” or wondering “if it’s going to work” is completely counter-productive. Dream big and embrace the ignorance you have for your collaborator’s areas of expertise: the freedom you have in not knowing how things are supposed to work is precious. My current project is a collaborative interactive performance here at the Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park in Turin where I am doing my Fulbright Fellowship. I am developing an increasing threshold for confusion tolerance (this is a good thing) as the collaborative team—which includes VRMMP’s Sound Designer, Paolo Armao, and University of Illinois’ John Toenjes–merges David Sonnenshein’s Sound Spheres with Laban Effort Life and accelerometer data collected from four very patient dancer’s wrists. As the collaboration evolves I must find ways to wrap my head around what it means to write code that enables a computer to interpret accelerometer data from dancers’ movements or how an audio engine can interpret this data and trigger procedural sounds via OSC protocol. The other day, Fabrizio, our programmer was discussing what library he would use in order to composite the 2D video into the 3D environment of MESH (a fancy acronym for an open source pre-visualization software the lab developed. Once again, I had to let go of my childhood notion of a book-filled structure with inviting armchairs and quickly google search my brain for the image of a library as a collection of code and data rather than manuscripts. Technology introduces an exciting element into live performance. For me it is about the juxtapostion of the raw, human experience with a prescribed, digital system that is (theoretically) predictable. I am fascinated by error and purposely create structures in my work that force the performers to live in the moment. I will create a set of tasks that are impossible to fully complete or I rely on the unreliability of the technology to leave the dancers with a decision to make on the spot; they must complete their given task without the necessarily feedback loop. My goal is to let the technology “behave” like another performer, offering input, reacting, and influencing the living performance. I am curious about the performer’s lived experience of these interactions and how it alters the internal architecture of the performance mentality, creating a kind of hyper-aware state that the audience definitely senses. The exciting challenge of all this networkable knowledge is finding the threads that can weave together a new piece, an exciting lecture, or an integrated workshop. This is how I am approaching my career as a multi-media dance artist although it requires some slightly schizophrenic abilities to go from teaching an LMA workshop for computer animators to developing the syllabus for our upcoming Dance for the Camera Workshop. I love the ability I have to constantly define my identity and shift my interests into a project that tips the scale into theory or practice, from the dance studio, a lab, or a classroom. This collection of interests weaves Laban Movement Analysis, Dance for the Camera, Computer Animation, and interactive performance with my main objective to dance and make dances. Rather than being disparate and tangential, I find these parallel channels to be unique but founded in the same main ingredient. Movement. And in a world that is completely infiltrated with technologies that promise to keep us more connected, there is an ever-increasing need to connect to the body itself. Human-centered computing is a call to value the expertise of people who understand movement and the body. I think it is time Wii stand up and show them what it’s all about. Return to Journal Contents