I found the two issues in the text very interesting. The one about how hard it is to capture movement and dance in films and the other one that there is little or no place for choreographers. As for the first one, the problematic might be that it is film is two dimensional (unless you watch Step Up 3D) and dance is three dimensional. Sometimes when you see dance in a movie it feels like the movements have been divided and then put together so it will fit the story and look esthetically correct instead of just letting the dance speak for itself. I also think that there is a lack of dance in movies and there are not a lot of films about dance. There are some but, it s usually being destroyed by bad acting and a thin story. However, there are movies that have memorable dance scenes in them even though the film is not a dance movie. I guess the problematic is also about what kind of dancing we are talking about. Nowadays there are several dance films and TV-shows but it is mostly dances like ballroom or hip hop. The more “artistic” dances such as contemporary, modern, interpretive etc. are not often seen in media.
This article highlighted a very common exception of video medium, which we implicitly know at the back of our minds. I cannot think of any feature presentation where dance has been captured in totality covering every movement and gesture in a continuous time. If such piece was created, it would definitely look cumbersome and an artistic mess. Though the article pointed out that movements make dancers and not the other way around, it doesn’t seem very plausible for famous choreographers and dancers who we see on screen, which have their camera topography set in advance, to deduce maximum meaning and/or effect from their movements.
Although the article was written in 1952, the point that the art of film making cannot authentically represent dance is still valid to day. The origination of films was to capture movement whereas movement creates dance. The fluidity of movement is evident when the unbroken line of dance is established. This linear motion cannot be captured on film. Cutting, editing, close ups breaks the continuous line of movement. While camera techniques are useful for narrative they present a crisis for the viewer who wants to become invested in the art of the dance. The camera must exclude one movement in order to capture another. The Balinese example articulates the desire of the audience that is interested in the technique of the dance which precedes the story of the performance. A dance performance on film usually begins in a linear movement, but, is always interrupted abruptly. Madness!
The comparison between dance and film shows the similarities between both mediums. Both convey a sense of tempo and time which are essential components to both mediums. Between dance and film, the article states that movement is what makes the storyline linear. When reading that, I realized how it is closely intertwined with the idea of editing and it's techniques to convey continuity. The idea of cutting on action in film and the juxtaposition of shots allow a sense of subjectivity that gives room for viewers to interpret. Another editing technique is creating a sense of tempo or time for the viewer to follow, similarly, dance itself is a play on tempo or rhythm.
The point that this article takes on about dance and film is very interesting. Sidney Peterson describes film and dance, two sources of expression, as unmatchable, or at least in the sense of recording a dance. While this claim is made for dance and film, the incongruity between the two isn't limited to just dance and film as this article examples, but can be applied to many other subjects of film. The fact that things are observed through the lens of a camera makes the reality of whatever is being filmed ultimately skewed. Just as the Sidney talks about the fluidity of the dance being disrupted when observed through film, the same can go for other subjects. Even though this article is written in 1952, where film is not nearly quite as developed as now, these ideas displayed within this article can certainly be thought about and applied to modern day filmmaking.
To me, this article almost points out the obvious. While Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl was right in saying that the essence of dance cannot be captured in film, there is very little that can. In fact, I think there are few media out there that can fully encapsulate the true essence of anything. Personally experiencing something is always the best way to go about things. Even if you read a book, see a film, or view a photograph, there's no real way to know exactly how or what something was like without being there physically.
I doubt that, unless film becomes completely interactive and encompasses the audience, it will ever be able to do much justice to subjects like dance. The way film works, through timing tricks and artificially chosen angles, makes it so that there's really no way it could be like the "real thing."
People don't watch dancers like how films make them out to be. They might choose to focus on the flick or a wrist or the gentle slope of shoulders, but they wouldn't choose to "zoom in" on a certain feature for a split second before "zooming out" again. Then again, all forms of media have their own sense of artificiality. It just depends on the level of artificiality.
In "The Slowing Down of the Subject" by Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, the two authors use the contentious relationship between dance and film as an example of how different mediums convey meaning. I believe the realization is that film is ultimately a replication, not a reproduction of an experience.
I've actually had the opportunity of seeing Balinese dance in person, and can only conclude that you have to be there to experience it fully. There is something profoundly peaceful in the dances, and the effortless grace of the dancers cause you follow their movements almost involuntarily, if somewhat clumsily as I did.
In the process of making a film of dance, or any movement for that matter, filmmakers both consciously and subconsciously frame their timeline according to their own vision. Where we would take in the whole dance both viscerally and visually as participants, the filmmaker decides what aspects we see in a film. This, together with the persistent logistical constraints of filmmaking, prevents us from becoming fully immersed in movement like dance in films.
In the article, Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, emphasizes on the importance of movement in films. However, they argue that movement is something more than just a way of expressions, "it makes dancers but dancers do not make movement" (120). The two authors elaborate on how "dancers and choreographers do not and, presumably cannot" be captured in films. That the movement in films, such as dancing, must be an oversimplified idea of a linear structure. However, I believe that personal experience and cultural perception plays a major role on how the audience view the films. There is no exact definition or way of knowing what is going on or what something is like, unless you are there experiencing it.
In their article, The Slowing Down of the Subject: A Medium for Choreographers, Authors Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl argue that film is an unsuitable and inadequate medium to capture dance. The authors point out that the cultural revolution that is filmmaking actually detracts from dance as a performing art. Peterson and Van Tuyl propose that the very nature of film is precisely what imposes crushing limitations to the reproduction of contemporary dance. For example, the authors point out that, in dance, subtle but defining gestures can only be captured on film by transitioning to a close-up, which consequently imposes a tradeoff: either frame rate is retained resulting in a jerky transition or a smooth transition is attained resulting in substantial frame loss. Whereas, contend the authors, a stationary recording, while preserving a continuous frame rate and "smoothness," irrevocably distorts visual reproduction and fails to capture the subtle nuances that essentiate dance as a performing art.
In "The Slowing Down of the Subject: A Medium for Choreographers," Sidney Peterson and arian Van Tuyl bring up the point that film is not a very effective medium to capture dance and choreography. The main reason for this is that film captures movement, and movement creates dance, but film is unable to capture the intricacy of a live dance. They note that cuts and close ups are made in films of dance, which can throw of the synchronization of the performance. Timing and rhythm is crucial when watching a dance performance, which makes watching dance on film difficult because the performance loses some of its charm and fluidity. Like most events, it is best to witness dance in person than on film, but a dance on film is often a very inaccurate representation.
This essay is primarily about the idea that dance cannot be satisfactorily filmed. A camera has a hard time following the movement of a dancer. Therefore, choreographers are not needed in the industry. It is true that through film you can catch glimpses of the grace of a dancer. But just as a recording of a music artist is different than a live performance, a dance cannot be fully appreciated looking through the lens of a camera. It lacks the emotion that is inspired in person. Peterson and van Tuyl state that “there is a slight loss in the actual time required for the completion of screen movement” (120) which means that in film you can miss key portions of dance.
Through the article “The slowing down of the subject: A medium for choreographers”, Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl try to explain to the readers the importance of movements and how hard it is to capture them in a film. By comparing two different form of art, dancing and filming. The authors show that by capturing the dancing movement into a film is basically simplifying it, since the way it was film has been putted into perspective, therefore the article came to the conclusion that film cannot fully capture the spirit of dancing. I agree that film can never capture a dance’s meaning. But as a different medium, film can have its own way of showing what a dance is in its own perspective. Such as using oil to paint a watercolor painting, while oil painting can never actually paint into a watercolor painting, it will have its own way of expression in art.Different medium can convey same meaning in art in through various perspective.
"The Slowing down of the Subject: A medium for Choreographers" points out that video is an inadequate medium to capture dance. Film can capture the movement of a dance, but it can't capture the fluid gestures of dance and doesn't compare to seeing a dance live. This holds true for any performance. Editing film may give a fresh new perspective to the audience, but it also distorts the fluidity of the performance. A live performance captured through film can't entrance an audience the way it does in real life.
In fact, I didn't quite get what the author was trying to say in the beginning of the essay as the author used so many paragraphs to describe the importance of "movement". As I read trough more and more, what he was trying to say became clearer to me. It actually impelled me to carefully thinking about a "dance film" for the first time. I do know that there's a huge difference between the dance on screen and the live dance. I had once recorded a complete dance of hip-hop but found it useless in the end for it turned out to be "flat" and entirely lost the stunning shock I got from physically presenting when the dance took place. For me, it is very profound that the author raises the point of view that a dance film needs special cutover to give prominence, power to the movement when still maintain a good continuity for the whole film. And it is even more inspiring that a dance destined to be shot on film needs to be originally choreographed for it. The essay indeed make dance film recondite to me as before and make me rethink about the time, effort, and coordination required to put out a good piece of dance film. The essay al well evoke my willingness to discover more from that area.
The article highlights the way film captures dance and how dance can not be fully captured by film, despite the efforts of the filmmaker. "They strive, ass it were, toward the condition not of music but of dance. Nevertheless they are not, strictly speaking, dances. They are films. And when dances exist in films it is not as dances but dances in films." The article also goes to say that if a film is to dance, it must sacrifice certain elements of film, including it's ability not to be linear.
I like who they tied in how editing is important to film, especially involving dance. On the third page the author describes a dance movement and how it can be seen in so many different ways just through the editing and cut of the film. I think this is true and I especially learned this through the films that we had to do for class. Just adding a few seconds, or even amile-seconds to a scene, it completely changes that scene-whether it be more dream-like or a choppy cut or give a whole different illusion. I also like the part on the second page where the author describes the problems with film and that the problem is simply how editors manipulate the film. Because our films today are much slower and more complex, it is true to the saying that every second counts and that when editing and shooting film, we must remember this. It is especially true with dance movement and film, because a wrong shot can show a choppy sequence or lose the essence and beauty of the dance.
This article argues that a recording of a dance takes away from the effect the dance has on an audience. It's actually something that I have noticed in videos showcasing dances. The frame of a video seems to be very limiting, which prevents the gracefulness and the intensity of the dance from being fully expressed to and absorbed by the audience. In a video, to even have a remote chance of preserving the feeling of viewing the dance in person, there must be several cuts made to different angles of the same dance, aka recording with multiple cameras placed at different spots. This constant shifting of the view can help to increase the feeling of excitement. Even so, the emotion from the dancer's movements on film is mostly lost.
The article largely discusses the restrictions that the camera imposes on viewers. What we see on screen is entirely dictated on what the camera is focusing on. Thus, we are forced to watch whatever is in the center of the screen that the directer wanted to emphasize to the audience so badly. And in doing so, the camera leaves out a lot of movement through zooming in closely on single objects, and not encapsulating the entire scene occurring about the entire frame. The authors also reason that movement has the ability to define time and space, as opposed to a close-up, which is an edited shot that cuts out real-time. Essentially, they are opposed to close-ups and constant cuts and edits to record a scene as it takes away from the overall movement, and therefore- the overall "magic" of the scene.
I never really thought about the time loss in films of movement, especially artistic performance, till I read this article it came sense to me how it's nearly impossible to display the actual art or dance performance in film. Unless film is one of the factors that the video artist wants to use to convey certain message through the dance performance, the actual art or dance performance itself in it's own artistic form cannot all be filmed. Movement cannot be edited un order to see every movement in a performance or the film would be too long; at least longer than the actual performance. However, I believe by the usage of film that viewers can at least sense the idea of how the performance was like even if they're not actually there (the benefit of film production)
Perhaps the only way you can visually see every part of the performance is by watching it live with your very own naked eyes, however, even then you will probably have to view closeup to see every detail. Also, perhaps this is what the article is trying to say as there are some situations where film cannot be used to precisely capture every movement to audiences that are not actually at the art performance. That the only way you can truly experience the art performance is by simply watching it in real, live action.
In the article“The slowing down of the subject: A medium for choreographers”,two authors Sidney Peterson and Marian Va Tuyl point out how different the movement have been seen from the medium and been seen directly from our eyes. From the example comparing the difference between seeing the movement of the dancer on the stage and on the screen,I realized that medium is able to create a sense of time ,space, movement and deliver to the viewers with subjective feeling through close-up shot,shifting lens,and oher filming techniques .However,the farm limit the choreography and the intricacy of the live performance.The film not only loss the essential interaction between the dancer and the audience,but interrupt the inner line of the movement.
I found it very interesting when the authors describe what is so enchanting about the Balinese dancing. According to the Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, it is not the story or line, but the movement of the bodies that captivates the audience. When attempting to film a dance or a musical, Peterson and Van Tuyl argue that the film is missing something and is rather boring. Gestures and time are lost or are out of sync and the dance is not as fluid as it would be live. That is why editing is such an important factor in films with dance movements. If the editing is not done well, then the whole scene can be ruined. This article reminded me of my school's musical. I watched and worked backstage on that musical for two weeks and every time I watched I was amazed by the talent of some kids and how easily some of them were able to move. By moving parts of their body, they told their own story and it was truly an art. When the dvd of the musical finally was done, I was rather disappointed and most of the "magic," as Peterson and Van Tuyl call it, was lost.
This week’s article is an enlightening piece pertaining to filming and videography of dance sequences. As pointed out in the article, I held the opinion of choreography preceding the camera shots but it may not always be the same. It is an intertwined relationship. I am currently taking a theater class, and preparing for monologues makes me think how difficult expressions, actions and dialogue delivery on stage are. But I believe it’s the same for television shows and movies where the topography of a performer is restricted more by the triangular space of the lens than the spatial relationship of the architecture, which again has been defined for the lens.
Sidney Peterson's essay digs deeply into the slowing down of subjects in media. Peterson states, "a film is sort of a mock dream with which, at enormous expense, an audience is enabled to sit quietly and enjoy a predigested affect strained through the constrict of a ready-made rationalization"(31). Rationalization follows the dream, allowing the audience to perceive it as a whole. In a dream, things tend to slow down, making things seem surreal. This is somewhat the same in film, when the subject is slowed down, the audience gets a better picture of the whole. I thought this essay was interesting because it reveals that movement is a very important component of film. It "tends to define the spaces in which they exist"(33). This connects to time and space, and how each precise moment has so much to tell.
In Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl’s The Slowing down of the subject: A Medium for Choreographers, what I found interesting was the fact that dance in media are ruining the art of dance since the audience cannot see the full potential of dance. In a way the authors say that the media downgrade the aesthetics of dance. However, although I can see their point of view, I would have to still disagree with their argument because of the time difference. The article was published in the 1950s, movies back then are completely different from what we as a society watch today. I believe dance in movies or media in general has helped expand the dance industry by exposing more people to it. And film, more specifically the choreographers can actually make a dance scene in a movie more intense and dramatic, making the audience more engaged in the scene. This is why I believe choreographers are extremely important especially for dance scenes because they can film the scene in different angles and views in order to make it more artistic and more beautiful than watching a dance performance in real life since the audience are almost on the same stage as the dancers through the cameras.
I have to agree with the article that film does not and cannot capture the entire experience of dance. However, I do not think that this means film cannot connect with the audience when it portrays dance. Although there are some trade-offs to when the director chooses to focus on a particular part of the subject which leads to cropping the rest of the environment of the dance, I think that enables the audience to see something that they would not be able to see if they were looking at the dancers from a distance. For example, a slight cut to a dancer's face expression while he/she is dancing could add to the emotion the dance portrays. Although the experience may be manipulated in the process of making the dance into film, with the combination of choreography and cinematography, I think it forms a new type of art that can touch the audience in an equal or more powerful ways.
the most interesting aspect of this article was the study on how the choreographers have to adapt their compositions to the medium of film, but specifically when changing the piece into something that can be viewed multiple times. The idea that a dance piece is live and continuous, only allows for a single viewing of a performance. This may result in a use of repetition of movements or gestures throughout the performance. A film on the other hand may not need to repeat certain gestures, because the film itself can be repeated for further investigation and understanding. The possiblities of understanding the works significance has increased due to the ability to review the work as much as the veiwer likes, while the process and communication of a concept in dance must be able to be understood throughout one performance (or at least most audiences are expecting this).
In the article, "The Slowing Down of the Subject," Peterson and van Tuyl introduces the transition of stage to film. With the discovery of the close up, subtle maneuvers can stay within realism without being over-emphasized. These breakthroughs emerged an "art form,” where the director is now the artist who can manipulate the concept of continuity. But when it comes to filming choreography, it brings up the question of which angle can bring out the best result of what the artist is trying to portray. Peterson and van Tuyl says that we must make sacrifices when filming dance, and I agree whole heartedly. I think that when we watch dance on video, there is only so much we can see that we cannot grasp the entire nuance. But with different cuts of the dance, the director can show us something that we wouldn’t be able to see live. They can create a film of a dance that cuts to different angles, but has continuity. Furthermore, the director can use the dance as a ready-made, sectioning out parts of the dance to show us a disruptive piece, giving us something entirely different than the intended meaning.
Sidney Peterson supposes that the development of a defined narrative in film has weakened the initial concept of film which was to capture motion. Peterson states “the camera ceased to be an instrument for recording movement as such as such and became a modest part of an elaborate procedure for suggesting a narrative continuity”. I would argue that motion in and of itself is a narrative. Any written story is always the progression of events. Time must elapse in order for a story to progress just as it must elapse for film to be created and viewed. It is in this unfolding of events and movements that a narrative is created. A dance is not mere movement but it is movement is a specific pattern and rhythm and this can be codified into a narrative. In fact during my courses of dance here at UCSD my teachers would strongly argue that one is not simply dancing but in fact is telling the viewer a compelling story.
I found the two issues in the text very interesting. The one about how hard it is to capture movement and dance in films and the other one that there is little or no place for choreographers. As for the first one, the problematic might be that it is film is two dimensional (unless you watch Step Up 3D) and dance is three dimensional. Sometimes when you see dance in a movie it feels like the movements have been divided and then put together so it will fit the story and look esthetically correct instead of just letting the dance speak for itself. I also think that there is a lack of dance in movies and there are not a lot of films about dance. There are some but, it s usually being destroyed by bad acting and a thin story. However, there are movies that have memorable dance scenes in them even though the film is not a dance movie. I guess the problematic is also about what kind of dancing we are talking about. Nowadays there are several dance films and TV-shows but it is mostly dances like ballroom or hip hop. The more “artistic” dances such as contemporary, modern, interpretive etc. are not often seen in media.
ReplyDeleteThis article highlighted a very common exception of video medium, which we implicitly know at the back of our minds. I cannot think of any feature presentation where dance has been captured in totality covering every movement and gesture in a continuous time. If such piece was created, it would definitely look cumbersome and an artistic mess. Though the article pointed out that movements make dancers and not the other way around, it doesn’t seem very plausible for famous choreographers and dancers who we see on screen, which have their camera topography set in advance, to deduce maximum meaning and/or effect from their movements.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the article was written in 1952, the point that the art of film making cannot authentically represent dance is still valid to day. The origination of films was to capture movement whereas movement creates dance. The fluidity of movement is evident when the unbroken line of dance is established. This linear motion cannot be captured on film. Cutting, editing, close ups breaks the continuous line of movement. While camera techniques are useful for narrative they present a crisis for the viewer who wants to become invested in the art of the dance. The camera must exclude one movement in order to capture another. The Balinese example articulates the desire of the audience that is interested in the technique of the dance which precedes the story of the performance. A dance performance on film usually begins in a linear movement, but, is always interrupted abruptly. Madness!
ReplyDeleteThe comparison between dance and film shows the similarities between both mediums. Both convey a sense of tempo and time which are essential components to both mediums. Between dance and film, the article states that movement is what makes the storyline linear. When reading that, I realized how it is closely intertwined with the idea of editing and it's techniques to convey continuity. The idea of cutting on action in film and the juxtaposition of shots allow a sense of subjectivity that gives room for viewers to interpret. Another editing technique is creating a sense of tempo or time for the viewer to follow, similarly, dance itself is a play on tempo or rhythm.
ReplyDeleteThe point that this article takes on about dance and film is very interesting. Sidney Peterson describes film and dance, two sources of expression, as unmatchable, or at least in the sense of recording a dance. While this claim is made for dance and film, the incongruity between the two isn't limited to just dance and film as this article examples, but can be applied to many other subjects of film. The fact that things are observed through the lens of a camera makes the reality of whatever is being filmed ultimately skewed. Just as the Sidney talks about the fluidity of the dance being disrupted when observed through film, the same can go for other subjects. Even though this article is written in 1952, where film is not nearly quite as developed as now, these ideas displayed within this article can certainly be thought about and applied to modern day filmmaking.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this article almost points out the obvious. While Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl was right in saying that the essence of dance cannot be captured in film, there is very little that can. In fact, I think there are few media out there that can fully encapsulate the true essence of anything. Personally experiencing something is always the best way to go about things. Even if you read a book, see a film, or view a photograph, there's no real way to know exactly how or what something was like without being there physically.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that, unless film becomes completely interactive and encompasses the audience, it will ever be able to do much justice to subjects like dance. The way film works, through timing tricks and artificially chosen angles, makes it so that there's really no way it could be like the "real thing."
People don't watch dancers like how films make them out to be. They might choose to focus on the flick or a wrist or the gentle slope of shoulders, but they wouldn't choose to "zoom in" on a certain feature for a split second before "zooming out" again. Then again, all forms of media have their own sense of artificiality. It just depends on the level of artificiality.
In "The Slowing Down of the Subject" by Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, the two authors use the contentious relationship between dance and film as an example of how different mediums convey meaning. I believe the realization is that film is ultimately a replication, not a reproduction of an experience.
ReplyDeleteI've actually had the opportunity of seeing Balinese dance in person, and can only conclude that you have to be there to experience it fully. There is something profoundly peaceful in the dances, and the effortless grace of the dancers cause you follow their movements almost involuntarily, if somewhat clumsily as I did.
In the process of making a film of dance, or any movement for that matter, filmmakers both consciously and subconsciously frame their timeline according to their own vision. Where we would take in the whole dance both viscerally and visually as participants, the filmmaker decides what aspects we see in a film. This, together with the persistent logistical constraints of filmmaking, prevents us from becoming fully immersed in movement like dance in films.
In the article, Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, emphasizes on the importance of movement in films. However, they argue that movement is something more than just a way of expressions, "it makes dancers but dancers do not make movement" (120). The two authors elaborate on how "dancers and choreographers do not and, presumably cannot" be captured in films. That the movement in films, such as dancing, must be an oversimplified idea of a linear structure. However, I believe that personal experience and cultural perception plays a major role on how the audience view the films. There is no exact definition or way of knowing what is going on or what something is like, unless you are there experiencing it.
ReplyDeleteIn their article, The Slowing Down of the Subject: A Medium for Choreographers, Authors Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl argue that film is an unsuitable and inadequate medium to capture dance. The authors point out that the cultural revolution that is filmmaking actually detracts from dance as a performing art. Peterson and Van Tuyl propose that the very nature of film is precisely what imposes crushing limitations to the reproduction of contemporary dance. For example, the authors point out that, in dance, subtle but defining gestures can only be captured on film by transitioning to a close-up, which consequently imposes a tradeoff: either frame rate is retained resulting in a jerky transition or a smooth transition is attained resulting in substantial frame loss. Whereas, contend the authors, a stationary recording, while preserving a continuous frame rate and "smoothness," irrevocably distorts visual reproduction and fails to capture the subtle nuances that essentiate dance as a performing art.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Slowing Down of the Subject: A Medium for Choreographers," Sidney Peterson and arian Van Tuyl bring up the point that film is not a very effective medium to capture dance and choreography. The main reason for this is that film captures movement, and movement creates dance, but film is unable to capture the intricacy of a live dance. They note that cuts and close ups are made in films of dance, which can throw of the synchronization of the performance. Timing and rhythm is crucial when watching a dance performance, which makes watching dance on film difficult because the performance loses some of its charm and fluidity. Like most events, it is best to witness dance in person than on film, but a dance on film is often a very inaccurate representation.
ReplyDeleteThis essay is primarily about the idea that dance cannot be satisfactorily filmed. A camera has a hard time following the movement of a dancer. Therefore, choreographers are not needed in the industry. It is true that through film you can catch glimpses of the grace of a dancer. But just as a recording of a music artist is different than a live performance, a dance cannot be fully appreciated looking through the lens of a camera. It lacks the emotion that is inspired in person. Peterson and van Tuyl state that “there is a slight loss in the actual time required for the completion of screen movement” (120) which means that in film you can miss key portions of dance.
ReplyDeleteThrough the article “The slowing down of the subject: A medium for choreographers”, Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl try to explain to the readers the importance of movements and how hard it is to capture them in a film. By comparing two different form of art, dancing and filming. The authors show that by capturing the dancing movement into a film is basically simplifying it, since the way it was film has been putted into perspective, therefore the article came to the conclusion that film cannot fully capture the spirit of dancing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that film can never capture a dance’s meaning. But as a different medium, film can have its own way of showing what a dance is in its own perspective. Such as using oil to paint a watercolor painting, while oil painting can never actually paint into a watercolor painting, it will have its own way of expression in art.Different medium can convey same meaning in art in through various perspective.
"The Slowing down of the Subject: A medium for Choreographers" points out that video is an inadequate medium to capture dance. Film can capture the movement of a dance, but it can't capture the fluid gestures of dance and doesn't compare to seeing a dance live. This holds true for any performance. Editing film may give a fresh new perspective to the audience, but it also distorts the fluidity of the performance. A live performance captured through film can't entrance an audience the way it does in real life.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I didn't quite get what the author was trying to say in the beginning of the essay as the author used so many paragraphs to describe the importance of "movement". As I read trough more and more, what he was trying to say became clearer to me. It actually impelled me to carefully thinking about a "dance film" for the first time. I do know that there's a huge difference between the dance on screen and the live dance. I had once recorded a complete dance of hip-hop but found it useless in the end for it turned out to be "flat" and entirely lost the stunning shock I got from physically presenting when the dance took place. For me, it is very profound that the author raises the point of view that a dance film needs special cutover to give prominence, power to the movement when still maintain a good continuity for the whole film. And it is even more inspiring that a dance destined to be shot on film needs to be originally choreographed for it. The essay indeed make dance film recondite to me as before and make me rethink about the time, effort, and coordination required to put out a good piece of dance film. The essay al well evoke my willingness to discover more from that area.
ReplyDeleteThe article highlights the way film captures dance and how dance can not be fully captured by film, despite the efforts of the filmmaker. "They strive, ass it were, toward the condition not of music but of dance. Nevertheless they are not, strictly speaking, dances. They are films. And when dances exist in films it is not as dances but dances in films." The article also goes to say that if a film is to dance, it must sacrifice certain elements of film, including it's ability not to be linear.
ReplyDeleteI like who they tied in how editing is important to film, especially involving dance. On the third page the author describes a dance movement and how it can be seen in so many different ways just through the editing and cut of the film. I think this is true and I especially learned this through the films that we had to do for class. Just adding a few seconds, or even amile-seconds to a scene, it completely changes that scene-whether it be more dream-like or a choppy cut or give a whole different illusion. I also like the part on the second page where the author describes the problems with film and that the problem is simply how editors manipulate the film. Because our films today are much slower and more complex, it is true to the saying that every second counts and that when editing and shooting film, we must remember this. It is especially true with dance movement and film, because a wrong shot can show a choppy sequence or lose the essence and beauty of the dance.
ReplyDeleteThis article argues that a recording of a dance takes away from the effect the dance has on an audience. It's actually something that I have noticed in videos showcasing dances. The frame of a video seems to be very limiting, which prevents the gracefulness and the intensity of the dance from being fully expressed to and absorbed by the audience. In a video, to even have a remote chance of preserving the feeling of viewing the dance in person, there must be several cuts made to different angles of the same dance, aka recording with multiple cameras placed at different spots. This constant shifting of the view can help to increase the feeling of excitement. Even so, the emotion from the dancer's movements on film is mostly lost.
ReplyDeleteThe article largely discusses the restrictions that the camera imposes on viewers. What we see on screen is entirely dictated on what the camera is focusing on. Thus, we are forced to watch whatever is in the center of the screen that the directer wanted to emphasize to the audience so badly. And in doing so, the camera leaves out a lot of movement through zooming in closely on single objects, and not encapsulating the entire scene occurring about the entire frame. The authors also reason that movement has the ability to define time and space, as opposed to a close-up, which is an edited shot that cuts out real-time. Essentially, they are opposed to close-ups and constant cuts and edits to record a scene as it takes away from the overall movement, and therefore- the overall "magic" of the scene.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about the time loss in films of movement, especially artistic performance, till I read this article it came sense to me how it's nearly impossible to display the actual art or dance performance in film. Unless film is one of the factors that the video artist wants to use to convey certain message through the dance performance, the actual art or dance performance itself in it's own artistic form cannot all be filmed. Movement cannot be edited un order to see every movement in a performance or the film would be too long; at least longer than the actual performance. However, I believe by the usage of film that viewers can at least sense the idea of how the performance was like even if they're not actually there (the benefit of film production)
ReplyDeletePerhaps the only way you can visually see every part of the performance is by watching it live with your very own naked eyes, however, even then you will probably have to view closeup to see every detail. Also, perhaps this is what the article is trying to say as there are some situations where film cannot be used to precisely capture every movement to audiences that are not actually at the art performance. That the only way you can truly experience the art performance is by simply watching it in real, live action.
In the article“The slowing down of the subject: A medium for choreographers”,two authors Sidney Peterson and Marian Va Tuyl point out how different the movement have been seen from the medium and been seen directly from our eyes. From the example comparing the difference between seeing the movement of the dancer on the stage and on the screen,I realized that medium is able to create a sense of time ,space, movement and deliver to the viewers with subjective feeling through close-up shot,shifting lens,and oher filming techniques .However,the farm limit the choreography and the intricacy of the live performance.The film not only loss the essential interaction between the dancer and the audience,but interrupt the inner line of the movement.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting when the authors describe what is so enchanting about the Balinese dancing. According to the Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl, it is not the story or line, but the movement of the bodies that captivates the audience. When attempting to film a dance or a musical, Peterson and Van Tuyl argue that the film is missing something and is rather boring. Gestures and time are lost or are out of sync and the dance is not as fluid as it would be live. That is why editing is such an important factor in films with dance movements. If the editing is not done well, then the whole scene can be ruined. This article reminded me of my school's musical. I watched and worked backstage on that musical for two weeks and every time I watched I was amazed by the talent of some kids and how easily some of them were able to move. By moving parts of their body, they told their own story and it was truly an art. When the dvd of the musical finally was done, I was rather disappointed and most of the "magic," as Peterson and Van Tuyl call it, was lost.
ReplyDeleteThis week’s article is an enlightening piece pertaining to filming and videography of dance sequences. As pointed out in the article, I held the opinion of choreography preceding the camera shots but it may not always be the same. It is an intertwined relationship. I am currently taking a theater class, and preparing for monologues makes me think how difficult expressions, actions and dialogue delivery on stage are. But I believe it’s the same for television shows and movies where the topography of a performer is restricted more by the triangular space of the lens than the spatial relationship of the architecture, which again has been defined for the lens.
ReplyDeleteSidney Peterson's essay digs deeply into the slowing down of subjects in media. Peterson states, "a film is sort of a mock dream with which, at enormous expense, an audience is enabled to sit quietly and enjoy a predigested affect strained through the constrict of a ready-made rationalization"(31). Rationalization follows the dream, allowing the audience to perceive it as a whole. In a dream, things tend to slow down, making things seem surreal. This is somewhat the same in film, when the subject is slowed down, the audience gets a better picture of the whole. I thought this essay was interesting because it reveals that movement is a very important component of film. It "tends to define the spaces in which they exist"(33). This connects to time and space, and how each precise moment has so much to tell.
ReplyDeleteIn Sidney Peterson and Marian Van Tuyl’s The Slowing down of the subject: A Medium for Choreographers, what I found interesting was the fact that dance in media are ruining the art of dance since the audience cannot see the full potential of dance. In a way the authors say that the media downgrade the aesthetics of dance. However, although I can see their point of view, I would have to still disagree with their argument because of the time difference. The article was published in the 1950s, movies back then are completely different from what we as a society watch today. I believe dance in movies or media in general has helped expand the dance industry by exposing more people to it. And film, more specifically the choreographers can actually make a dance scene in a movie more intense and dramatic, making the audience more engaged in the scene. This is why I believe choreographers are extremely important especially for dance scenes because they can film the scene in different angles and views in order to make it more artistic and more beautiful than watching a dance performance in real life since the audience are almost on the same stage as the dancers through the cameras.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the article that film does not and cannot capture the entire experience of dance. However, I do not think that this means film cannot connect with the audience when it portrays dance. Although there are some trade-offs to when the director chooses to focus on a particular part of the subject which leads to cropping the rest of the environment of the dance, I think that enables the audience to see something that they would not be able to see if they were looking at the dancers from a distance. For example, a slight cut to a dancer's face expression while he/she is dancing could add to the emotion the dance portrays. Although the experience may be manipulated in the process of making the dance into film, with the combination of choreography and cinematography, I think it forms a new type of art that can touch the audience in an equal or more powerful ways.
ReplyDeletethe most interesting aspect of this article was the study on how the choreographers have to adapt their compositions to the medium of film, but specifically when changing the piece into something that can be viewed multiple times. The idea that a dance piece is live and continuous, only allows for a single viewing of a performance. This may result in a use of repetition of movements or gestures throughout the performance. A film on the other hand may not need to repeat certain gestures, because the film itself can be repeated for further investigation and understanding. The possiblities of understanding the works significance has increased due to the ability to review the work as much as the veiwer likes, while the process and communication of a concept in dance must be able to be understood throughout one performance (or at least most audiences are expecting this).
ReplyDeleteIn the article, "The Slowing Down of the Subject," Peterson and van Tuyl introduces the transition of stage to film. With the discovery of the close up, subtle maneuvers can stay within realism without being over-emphasized. These breakthroughs emerged an "art form,” where the director is now the artist who can manipulate the concept of continuity. But when it comes to filming choreography, it brings up the question of which angle can bring out the best result of what the artist is trying to portray. Peterson and van Tuyl says that we must make sacrifices when filming dance, and I agree whole heartedly. I think that when we watch dance on video, there is only so much we can see that we cannot grasp the entire nuance. But with different cuts of the dance, the director can show us something that we wouldn’t be able to see live. They can create a film of a dance that cuts to different angles, but has continuity. Furthermore, the director can use the dance as a ready-made, sectioning out parts of the dance to show us a disruptive piece, giving us something entirely different than the intended meaning.
ReplyDeleteSidney Peterson supposes that the development of a defined narrative in film has weakened the initial concept of film which was to capture motion. Peterson states “the camera ceased to be an instrument for recording movement as such as such and became a modest part of an elaborate procedure for suggesting a narrative continuity”. I would argue that motion in and of itself is a narrative. Any written story is always the progression of events. Time must elapse in order for a story to progress just as it must elapse for film to be created and viewed. It is in this unfolding of events and movements that a narrative is created. A dance is not mere movement but it is movement is a specific pattern and rhythm and this can be codified into a narrative. In fact during my courses of dance here at UCSD my teachers would strongly argue that one is not simply dancing but in fact is telling the viewer a compelling story.
ReplyDeleteBy Mike Boulrice