Comment

Comment by Jeannette Ginslov on March 28, 2009 at 5:21pm

Yes this is an adaptation of an extraordinary live work dealing with masculinity and gay issues. I would classify it as dance film. For me it is not video dance and does not have the same experimentalism associated with the "garageband zero budget zone". This tends to lie outside the mainstream, in the fringes so to speak. Does this mean that with more editing, more camera movement, riskier subject mater (perhaps) we are keeping our work in a place that does NOT a) deserve to be funded b) receive much notice c) make it into the mainstream and get funding or attention.

Enter Achilles is an old work and well known, well shot and the production levels are high. The stuff the "others of us make" is sometimes none of those things, and yet there is sometimes something else there. The dance and bodies are being mediated by the frame, there is a discourse that arises out of the relationship between camera, movement, dancer and subject matter. And I would like to twist something that Doug Rosenberg (2006) stated in a paper at a symposium in Findhorn - "the camera is a carnivore". Here he meant that it fetishizes the dancer and the dance, sexualizes it. However I think if we reconsider the use of the "carnivorous camera" and really hone in on amplifying the emotional and kinesthetic content, as well as editing an affective montage, then we too could make video dance works that are as extraordinary as live events!
Not even going to start discussing the editng)

Comment by Marta Renzi on March 28, 2009 at 10:17am

I'm a huge fan of DV8, and I'm delighted to be able to send friends to dance-tech to see part of ENTER ACHILLES. The screen adaptations of Newsom's work are exemplary versions of extraordinary live works, which themselves were years in the making. At the other end of the spectrum is the zero budget, garageband stuff that others of us make..

Comment by Marlon Barrios Solano on March 25, 2009 at 6:40pm

Hello Dierdre,
can you announce this in your blog area and in the group! I think this is a great idea.
M

Comment by Deirdre Towers on March 25, 2009 at 11:15am

DFA is starting a weekly forum sparked by a new video posted each week. Please add your comments as to the content, the direction of it, and its impact, whether emotional or physical, on you.