Dance on Camera
Editors Letters || Wednesday, 15 March, 2006
Just a short note in response to the first rational article I have ever seen on Dance Film. Fabulous article, although I think it falls short to highlight some of the main problems concerning dance on screen.
One of the main problems that isnt highlighted,however, is that consistently the wrong people have been invited to make Dance Films or have been able to acquire the funding to do so, due to the following mistaken assumptions:
1. That a good stage choreographer will be able to make equally good screen choreographer. (when they are clearly VERY different crafts)
2. That the same timescale works for dance on screen as it does for dance on the stage i.e. 1 hour of stage dance will translate to the same on screen.
I have seen some VERY good dance on screen, although with very few exceptions (Charlotte Vincent) most of them have been produced by young people or dancers working in the community.
I would seem to me that it isn't the genre that's in trouble, but the way that people who commission dance film decide who to commission.
Perhaps the way forward is to stop making huge expensive and pointless forays into 35mm film and actually feed the new exciting dance screen works on video to be shown as virals or as phone video messages or other cheap distribution networks.
This way, we could identify people with actual talen or ability who could help drive the artform forward.
Lets play with it, rather than produce overblown grand gestures that frankly, the rest of the arts world is unable to take seriously
Neil Simpson
Stumble It!
