Dancers: Remi Harris, Matt Sweeney, Donna Costello, Kyleigh Sackandy, Zachary Pace, production still from Fünf 'n' Twist, directed by Anna Brady Nuse. Photo: Penelope RoussetzkiFor the last three weeks I've been completely consumed by my videodance project, Fünf 'n' Twist. Last Thursday and Friday we shot all the prom scenes of the video, and it marked my first time directing (and producing) an indoor shoot.Kerrie Welsh & J Why, on set of Fünf 'n' Twist. Photo: Susanna Christians Through a monumental eff

What I love the most about my guest-curated Kinetic Cinema series is that I'm constantly exposed to new art and ideas I would never have run across otherwise. Last Monday's (4/7) program was no exception. Jonah Bokaer, dancer, choreographer, media artist, and community-builder extraordinaire surprised even me, by scrapping his original program of Nam June Paik videos, to show an evening completely devoted to feminist video art from the 60's and 70's, entitled "Miss Behavior: Video Art and the...

I'll soon be launching a new blog on Great Dance. I have about two to four weeks left of research before I'm ready to roll it out. The goal of my new blog is ambitious: I'd like to engage a much larger number of people outside of the dance community in conversations about dance, movement and gestures. Much more to come. A Bit of a Teaser Here are three stories and videos that "point" to new directions in how gestures are being used to interact with our increasingly digital world: In Robo...

What's DARPA doing now? Going to the dogs, that's what.

Puttin' On The Ritz. One Fred Astaire good, several Fred Astaires better?

There are many approaches that the contemporary dance community can take to integrating dance into our daily discourse. In other words, dance and movement can be both a practical tool and a creative approach through which people with varied interests, hobbies and expertise can see, experience and better understand the world in which they live. Below I offer a specific example of what I mean. But first, two candid quotes from dance bloggers that I think illustrate the disconnect between the c...

In his Magnesium video blog on Great Dance, Matt Gough has a post "Ecdysis" that explores a movement score created by Nancy Garcia. Here's Matt's video that he shot with the built-in camera on his Mac. The soundtrack is "First Brain" by Kaki King (iTunes link): I didn't really follow Matt's advice and watch his video before understanding the context of his creative approach. I first listened to Nancy's movement score so I could learn about the source of Matt's improvisation. In the creat...