Foundations of Screendance

 moment(1999) - Katrina McPherson


Structure: All un-stabilized handheld, 1-2 second cuts, small paths.

Long blur-in to ECU's, constant camera rotation, 1/2 shots, late music with simple rhythm, room sweeps, classic architecture, room wide, full-length stills, then motion, bird's-eye, touching emphasis, longer cuts.

Ellen Bromberg, from an introduction to Making Video Dance (2019) by Katrina McPherson:

"...Katrina's camera was bringing the viewer into the space of the dance, rather than objectifying the dance and the dancers... in her work one feels the body behind the camera and not only its gaze."

This was a radical departure from the goals of traditional dance documentation, but in line with well-developed motion picture techniques.  Ultra-short cuts were popularized by MTV music videos in the 1980's to create intense the stimulation and disorientation of a rock concert.  Hand-held cameras and steadicams are used to give the viewer the sensation of being in the scene, to duplicate the unsteady scanning techniques the eyes and muscles use to create the perceptual gestalt, the experience of presence.





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