See the short Sylvie Guillem video to which the following discussion refers and the post’s full form here.
I don’t so much like the playfulness of the improvisation coupled with the serious, sentimental slow down, black & white, and romantic guitar.
I do like when the channels interact, though, when the characters act out directional forces and are pulling and stretching against each other. Starting at :20 and culminating at :32, the close up forms in both shots move towards each other to become one undulating object. Though the channels are separate, the left channel’s black figure masks the separating line, making it appear that the two channels are merged.
*What if the two channels were always touching?
**Just got an image of shots skimming along the ground/water/whatever moving toward each other (L channel shot moving to the right, R channel moving to the left), two dancers walk slowly at each other from either side of the stage, to meet in the middle, but in some unexpected/abrupt/sharp way?
***Will the usage of film be effective without use of people? I have to restrict it to that because of timeline (I don’t have time to take footage of both myself and my partner in the right environment, make a film out of it, set choreography to it, AND write a paper). BUT, epiphany!
This performance is about acting out internal space, internal forces, momentum. Not having people on the screen will lessen the temptation to narrative-ize the footage, privileging it, reducing the competitive nature between the two mediums, while at the same time allowing the footage to augment the dance, making visible internal abstract force. The footage is a projection (hah!) of the internal spatial narrative, and that narrative is increasingly digital.
Wow. Inspiration can come from things you don’t like.
See more parts of the full story at http://honestmovement.tumblr.com/