Liveness and MediatizationPER007-1 Applied Choreography: Dance and Innovation

Dr Louise Douse

Learning objectives

Upon completing this lesson you will be able to:

•Identify the aims of the unit

•Identify the lecture schedule

•Identify the assessment details

•Understand the broader cultural impact of digital technologies on society

•Understand the current debates around live and mediated performance

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Unit Aims

• To encourage the application of compositional skill and understanding to innovative and emerging fields of practice

• To consider ways in which dance can have creative applications to a range of different contexts both live and virtual

• To provide the framework for the introduction of professional skills that will build throughout the programme towards enhancing employability through the creative and practical use of digital technologies

• To focus on the relationship of dance, performance and choreographic practice to new media and technologies

• To develop professional methods of working such as collaborative working practices, working to time deadlines and individual responsibility

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Unit Schedule

Teaching week/Calendar week/Date

Theme, content, title Preparation

Teaching week 1Calendar week 41Week beginning Monday 6th October

Lecture 1:Liveness and Mediatisation

 

Teaching week 2Calendar week 42Week beginning Monday 13th October

Lecture 2:Dance in Popular Culture: From Hollywood to MTV

Dodds, S. (2001) ‘Histories of dance on screen,’ in Dance on screen: genres and media from Hollywood to experimental art. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 4-16.*Please only read to the end of the first paragraph on page 7.

Teaching week 3Calendar week 43Week beginning Monday 20th October

Lecture 3:Avant-Garde Film Practices

Greenfield, A. (2002) ‘The kinesthetic of avant-garde dance film: Deren and Harris,’ in Mitoma, J., Zimmer, E., Steiber, D. A., Heinonen, N. and Zuniga Shaw, N. (eds.) Envisioning dance on film and video. London: Routledge, pp. 21-26

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Lecture Schedule

Teaching week/Calendar week/Date

Theme, content, title

Lecture preparation(please see BREO for additional subject specific seminar preparation)

Teaching week 4Calendar week 44Week beginning Monday 27th October

Lecture 4:Contemporary Screendance

Watch the video’s from Dance Camera West’s website. (Link available on BREO).

Teaching week 5Calendar week 45Week beginning Monday 3rd November

Lecture 5:The Treatment

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘First steps,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 1-20.

Teaching week 6Calendar week 46Week beginning Monday 10th November

Workshop 1:Constructing the Frame & Choreographing the Camera

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘Dance and the camera,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 23-40.

Teaching week 7Calendar week 47Week beginning Monday 17th November

Workshop 2:Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘Developing the work,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 43-60.

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Lecture Schedule

Teaching week/Calendar week/Date

Theme, content, title

Lecture preparation(please see BREO for additional subject specific seminar preparation)

Teaching week 8Calendar week 48Week beginning Monday 24th November

Workshop 3:Project Development

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘When the shoot comes’ and ‘Light and sound on the shoot,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 118-138 and pp. 141-155.

Teaching week 9Calendar week 49Week beginning Monday 1st December

Workshop 4:Project Development

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘Preparation for the edit,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 157-171.

Teaching week 10Calendar week 50Week beginning Monday 8th December

Workshop 5:Post-Production – EditingLibrary Training Suite 2

McPherson, K. (2006) ‘Choreography of the edit,’ in Making video dance: a step-by-step guide to creating dance for the screen. London: Routledge, pp. 173-195

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Assessment 1 – Dance for Screen

• When

• Thursday 8th January 2015, screening during your class time at 1pm. Feedback sheet through turnitin must be submitted.

• What

• You will be required to work in small groups to produce a 3-minute dance film that will test skills, knowledge and understanding in screen-based performance. As part of this project you will take on and lead in a specific role, this may be as performer, director, editor or choreographer. You will develop an understanding of how this role contributes to the development and production of a dance film, and be able to demonstrate this understanding through carrying out this role successfully.

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Assessment 1 – Dance for Screen

• Weighting of the assessment

• This assessment forms 30% of the unit.

• Criteria for this assessment

• The Assessment Criteria for this assessment is below and can be associated with Learning Outcomes 1 and 2.

• Work with the technology and resources provided, to enable your artistic vision to be realised

• Embed specific technology effectively into dance projects

• Carry out the key tasks of a specified role within a group project

• Provide evidence through practice of an understanding and response to the creative tradition that is screen dance

• Demonstrate that appropriate artistic choices have been made in relation to the chosen investigation

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Assessment 2 – Hybrid Performance

• When• Monday 18th May 2015, 7pm Main Theatre, feedback sheet through

turnitin must be submitted.• What

• The second assessment in this unit will build on the skills and understanding developed and tested in the first. In this assessment you are required to work as part of a larger group, on a tutor-led production. You will contribute as an individual, both creatively to the development of the final production and in your performance of the work. This assessment enables you to extend your experience of working as part of a group towards a creative outcome, but on a larger scale. You will also use the skills developed in the first assessment regarding relationships to technology, choreography and performance in this bigger production.

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Assessment 2 – Hybrid Performance

• Weighting of the assessment

• This assessment forms 40% of the unit.

• Criteria for this assessment

• The Assessment Criteria for this assessment is below and can be associated with Learning Outcomes 1 and 3.

• Work with the technology and resources provided, to enable your artistic vision to be realised

• Embed specific technology effectively into dance projects

• Demonstrate, through practice, an understanding of a range of performance modes involved within new media work

• Evidence an individual contribution to the choreographic choices made in the development of both live and virtual imagery

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Assessment 3 – Digital Journal

• When

• Friday 29th May 2015, online blog on BREO must be submitted.

• What

• This assessment requires you to individually produce a written reflective digital journal of 1,000 words including quotations. The final assessment allows you to articulate your understanding and experience of the two projects that you have contributed to during the year. This assessment will test your written communication skills and your ability to reflect on your own practice and progression.

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Assessment 3 – Digital Journal

• Weighting of the assessment• This assessment forms 30% of the unit.

• Criteria for this assessment• The Assessment Criteria for this assessment is below and can be

associated with Learning Outcomes 4 and 5.• Demonstrate an understanding of a range of secondary and

primary research resources• Use correct terminology to articulate your ideas in this field of work• Use the university referencing system correctly and adhere to

academic conventions• Evidence the use of documentation and critical reflection upon a

creative contribution to a hybrid production• Write reflectively about your individual contribution to group

projects

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Technology as Experience

• “We don’t just use technology, we live with it. Much more deeply than ever before, we are aware that interacting with technology involves us emotionally, intellectually, and sensually. For this reason, those who design, use, and evaluate interactive systems need to be able to understand and analyse people’s felt experience with technology.”

(McCarthy, and Wright, 2004, p. ix)

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Space / Time

• “Even the most perfect reproduction… is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space.”

(Benjamin cited in Dixon, 2007, p. 116)

• “Every Photograph is a certificate of presence.”

(Barthes cited in Dixon, 2007, p. 116)

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Live / Virtual

• “Performance’s only life is in the present.  Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance.”

(Phelan cited in Dixon, 2007, p. 123)

• “[I]t may be that we are at a point at which liveness can no longer be defined in terms of either the presence of living human beings before each other, or physical and temporal relationships. The emerging definition of liveness may be built primarily around the audiences' affective experience. To the extent that websites and other virtual entities respond to us in real-time, they feel live to us, and this may be the kind of liveness we now value.”

Auslander, 2008, p. 62) University of Bedfordshire 15

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Summary

Next Lecture

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Teaching week 2Calendar week 42Week beginning Monday 13th October

Lecture 2:Dance in Popular Culture: From Hollywood to MTV

Dodds, S. (2001) ‘Histories of dance on screen,’ in Dance on screen: genres and media from Hollywood to experimental art. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 4-16.*Please only read to the end of the first paragraph on page 7.

Task: Watch video’s on YouTube (link on BREO in Guided Learning)

Weekly Musical Theatre Film Showing

• When: Tuesday 14th October at 6:30pm

• Where: Main Theatre

• What: West Side Story (running time: approximately 150 minutes)

• Synopsis:

• West Side Story is a 1961 American romantic musical drama film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

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References

• Auslander, P. (2008) Liveness: performance in a mediatized culture. 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.

• Dixon, S. (2007) Digital performance: a history of new media in theater, dance, performance art, and installations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

• McCarthy, J. and Wright, P. (2004) Technology as experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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