Filming dance means removing physical boundaries

By KYLIE TANNAHILL

Dance filmmaking – which focuses on removing the physical limitations of dance – is becoming an artistic genre of its own.

That is the vision of Mike Stubbs, a UK filmmaker who designs works to expand people's awareness about the way dance can be translated into film.

Unitec Performing Arts dance students and other avid dancers and filmmakers gathered at Auckland's Town Hall yesterday to discover alternative ways of exploring their crafts by performing and filming dance in a two-day Digital Dance workshop, part of the ignite2001 festival.

Stubbs spoke of his work in progress, which documents a French choreographer's mission to create a dance piece in a weightless environment.

Dancers train underwater and at the European space centre to further push the boundaries of their craft in a work that is specifically made for film, he said.

"The moving image can be used in lots of ways; it does not necessarily need to tell a story," Stubbs told workshop participants.

"From my view as a filmmaker, I am trying to make a successful piece of film."

As the lights dimmed, Stubbs showed some of his groundbreaking pieces, such as The Sweatlodge and Resistor.

Departing from tradition, Stubbs' films move away from wide shots which show every movement, to close-ups that evoke the emotion and intensity of the piece.

"The amount of dance that you actually see is not that much," he said. "There are no sets and props. I am trying to get as much of an abstract space as possible."

Stubbs encouraged participants in his workshop to push their own boundaries in terms of what they thought dance could become once it was filmed.

He began his own training in photography and branched out into filming dance a little over two years ago. He sees it as his job to show dance from a filmmaker's perspective.

The workshop, where participants have a chance to produce their own short pieces, will wind up tomorrow.

* The author is a journalism student at Auckland University of Technology.

Feature: ignite2001 festival

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