Move Me
Performance Reviews || Wednesday, 22 February, 2006
The Capture series of films from Arts Council England has never been a series to inspire confidence but with Move Me, an interactive installation, has the series turned a corner and produced something innovative and entertaining?
Move Me is a photo booth like construction that the ‘dancer’ goes inside and with instruction from the numerous built in ‘choreographers’ you create a short dance within the booth that is recorded and then, sometime later, is posted onto the projects website as a video clip.
Essentially that is what this project does, it provides a closed off environment for you, and your friends, as many as you can fit inside the very small space, to create either a dance of your choosing or you can listen to the instructions of the onscreen dance makers. End of story.
Featuring such mainstays of the dance world as Nigel Charnock, Stephen Petronio and Shebona Jeyasingh, the pedigree of the on-screen dance makers is certainly at the established end of the field.
By posting the videos online the creators of this device, Ricochet Dance and Goat Productions, must be telling us that these creations are worth watching. That is where this project falls flat on its hi-tech face however because the dances are pedestrian at best and most certainly not worth watching by anyone other than the unfortunate participants.
It’s not the dancers fault because, let's face it, just how much can you do when stuck in a tiny enclosed space with only the upper third of your body visible? Since the dancers are also under the instruction of their digital choreographer the dances will, inevitably, all look the same (stare at camera, turn to the back, or just arse about if you don’t feel like listening).
You can’t fault the presentation of the device or the Move Me website which are both highly polished and professional. The old online mantra of ‘content is king’ holds true as ever though because all the pretty graphics in the world can’t make up for the shallow material provided for the audience. One short dance sequence sums it up perfectly as the three dance students make their video, become rather bored and leave the booth, the device left to record their fading voices as they walk away.
It would seem that the creators have become carried away with the technology without pausing to think about the material that would actually be created and how completely unappealing it would be for anybody to view. Move Me is the dance equivalent of those machines at airports that print funny cards you can give to your friends to prove how ‘zany’ you are.
This contraption is unworthy of Ricochet Dance Productions name and only re-enforces the massive problems with the Capture series and the projects ability to source dance on film that has anything approaching lasting appeal.
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