The Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) will be hosting a conference on the artistic intersection between dance and film from the 26th to the 28th of August. Filmmakers and choreographers will switch roles in the process of creating an interdisciplinary art form known as screen dance.
Film and Dance, a weekend long event will probe a rising new art form that combines film making with choreography. Dance on film is slowly becoming the new visual language of our time. We see it in commercials, music videos, feature films and series and on viral online clips. Choreographers also make use of digital media in live performances and continue to record dance on film for archive purposes.
Through these practices a new exciting hybrid genre has been born: dance for the camera, commonly known as screen dance or the dance film. Jay Pather, director of GIPCA said “Artists in dance, film and visual arts have been exploring this aspect of mixed media since the beginning of the 20th century. It is gratifying that screen dance is beginning to be recognised as a new hybrid genre in South Africa. GIPCA is proud to host these discussions and screenings and we are particularly grateful to partner with the Goethe Institute to secure a startling and exquisite film about a powerful voice in contemporary dance, Pina Bauch.”
The event will open with the South African première of German Filmmaker, Wim Wenders’ highly acclaimed PINA. Shot in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, this feature-length dance film portrays the exhilarating and inimitable art of this great German choreographer who died in 2009. Thanks to the latest possibilities created by digital 3D technology, Wenders found the aesthetic means to brin g the unique plasticity and emotional expressiveness of Pina Bausch’s innovative Tanztheater to the cinema screen. Only now can the dimension of the space be reproduced in the cinema. It is this dimension in which movement and dance take place, and into which the new 3D cinema can take the viewer on a sensual journey of discovery.
The event continues on Saturday with an opening guest lecture entitled 100 Years of Dance for the Camera by Deirdre Towers, producer of the 35th Dance on Camera Festival in New York. Towers has written about the dance film for over twenty publications, including for Dance Magazine where she worked for 5 years. She has served on the juries of Dance Screen, Grand Prix de Video Danse, the International Emmys, and the American Dance Festival.
Panel discussions will include Real Place and Virtual Space featuring choreographers and videographers who have collaborated creating live performances with projection; Festivals and Funding a look at existing international and local dance film festivals and the latest trends in formatting, style, distribution and audience response and Screen dance in the shifting landscape of film and new media will introduce the latest trends in technology and its effects on the artistic product.
Additional guest speakers include Danish South African choreographer and filmmaker Jeannette Ginslov, choreographer Nelisiwe Xaba, filmmaker and lecturer Mocke van Veuren, festival director and visual artist Kai Lossgott, visual artist and architect Doung Jahangeer and many more.
The weekend conference will provide artists with the opportunity to network as well as discover and experience the exciting possibilities of dance on screen. Tickets prices are R100 (conference and screening of PINA on Friday 26 August); R60 (conference only) and R50 for the screening of PINA on Saturday 27 August (including 3D glasses). Student tickets are R60 for conference and Friday screening of PINA, and R40 for conference only. Bookings for the Film and Dance conference and PINA open 11 August. Conference tickets available through Computicket; tickets for the screening of PINA on Saturday 27 August can be purchased through Ster Kinekor.
