My lifelong study of dance has focused on the idea that the act of dance is tied to being present in the physical body, communicating through the language of movement, and understanding that the moment of a movement’s creation is also the moment of its disappearance. A singular movement performed on stage never again occurs in exactly the same way. But as I cycle into a new era of my dance-making career, I am curious about the ways in which those moments of disappearance can remain in an artifact — for example, on film. Although dance has been captured on film for decades, I have seen in my study and work in the relatively new genre of Dance Film that dance choreographed specifically for the camera has the potential to bring modern dance into another realm, one of profound possibility: the screen.
The creation of dance film proves that a choreographer’s tool belt is not limited to just one form, and that dance can make an impact beyond the moment of performance.