Does one always set out to communicate when one writes?
No, sometimes you are just trying to understand your thoughts, study your dreams, wrestle with something you heard, did, or saw, come to grips with the mysteries of being.
Communication begins when you think about someone other than just yourself.
This might be why good writing is also known as re-writing. You can jot down your thoughts for yourself. But, if the time comes to share those thoughts, then you can re-read what you've written to see if anyone might vaguely follow you. You check to make sure you're not repeating yourself. Am I building a persuasive argument, creating a flow, varying the rhythm enough to incite a riot of tension and excitement?
The literary giants, as well as the leaders in any art, have sorted through their thinking, stories, methods so that their work holds us captive from the first to the last word, the first to last frame in the case of dance on camera. How? is often their secret.
Communicating with images as one does in dance on camera effectively implies visual literacy on both the "writer" and the viewer. An innumerable number of decisions made in the course of the creative process separate the amateurs from the pros. But just as a dancer trains like a devil to transform impossible tricks into seemingly effortless feats of imagination, so the capable dance filmmaker can dupe a beginner into thinking dance on camera is quite facile.
Get a camera, find a space, press play and jump in front of the lens.
We've found over decades that everyone seems to be tolerant and satisfied to watch a live, not particularly stellar performance but watch that same performance on video? We cry to be released very quickly. Dance filmmakers have to be deft at capturing our audience from the get-go and hold them. How do we do that?
We have no formulas for success. Composers have music theory to back them up. Doctors have centuries of analysis and practice. But dance filmmakers? How do we gain the craft?
By being aware of our sensual reactions, perhaps number one. We can mine our own image databank, our mental reference library, learn to trust our intuition, and note continually what fascinates us, makes us laugh, squirm, and think.
Can the dance filmmaker discover the equivalent of musical dominant/tonic resolution in the visual world. I asked once Mark Morris, the choreographer known for his musicality, had he found the equivalent. It was the only question I had for him that left him stumped.
Will we be able to teach visual harmony and counterpoint at some point?
Certainly the narrative film world has its myriad film schools, theory, and formulas. How can those be applied to the world of dance - with care and study.
Reading the fascinting book "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese, I was struck by a chapter called "Prognostic Signs." He writes, "Life is full of signs. The trick is to know how to read them. Ghosh called this heuristics, a method of solving a problem for which no formula exists."
Heuristics, otherwise known as rule of thumb, trial and error, - according to Wikipedia - refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a good enough solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical. Polya's 1945 book, How to Solve It:[2]
All good advice for dance filmmakers. The importance of envisioning the final film, the experience of the viewer, beginning at the end desired result is paramount.
Each of the pioneer dance filmmakers from George Melies to Maya Deren, dancer/choreographers working in commercial films Gene Kelly to Michael Jackson, concert choreographers Jerome Robbins to Edouard Lock had their specific intention and goal.
George Melies wanted to entertain and dazzle his audience with his magic tricks of superimposition. Maya Deren, the daughter of a Russian Psychologist, drew from her studies of Voodoo wanted to hypnotise her viewer. Gene Kelly wanted to stretch beyond his known success as a macho physical dancer to being referred as an innovator who could use the frame of a story to experiment. Michael Jackson worked with choreographer Vincent Patterson to pay homage to the Film Noir in "Smooth Criminal." Both Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, and Edouard Lock analyzed their own choreography to discover what would be the exact camera angle, at the right moment, to reveal the unique thrust of their movement and what it could trigger in the viewer.
The Australian born choreographer Lloyd Newson of the British based company DV8 was trained in the field of psychology. His stage and film adaptations know just how much prodding and provoking he can do before he pulls back to take a pause. He is a master manipulator but he ingeniously stays within the world of dance without letting all his toolbox show as obviously as in BLACK SWAN. |
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