Title: Avant-Garde Film Practices Unit: PER007-1 Applied Choreography: Dance and Innovation Course: Dance and Professional Practice Institution: University of Bedfordshire Tutor: Dr Louise Douse

1. Avant-Garde Film Practices
PER007-1 Applied Choreography: Dance and Innovation
Dr Louise Douse

2. Film Pioneers
• 1872-1878
• British photographer Eadweard Muybridge
• Took the first successful photographs of motion, producing multiple
image sequences analyzing human and animal locomotion.
University of Bedfordshire 2

3. Film Pioneers
• 1891 Thomas Edison developed or invented the Kinetoscope, a
single-viewer peep-show device in which film was moved past a light
• The first public demonstration of motion pictures using the
Kinetoscope occurred at the Edison Laboratories
• The very short film’s subject in the test footage, titled Dickson
Greeting, was William K.L. Dickson bowing, smiling and
ceremoniously taking off his hat
University of Bedfordshire 3

4. Film Pioneers
• The earliest colour hand-tinted films ever publicly-released were
Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894), Annabelle Sun Dance (1894), and
Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1899) featuring the dancing of
vaudeville-music hall performer Annabelle Whitford
University of Bedfordshire 4

5. Early Dance Film
• Ruth St Denis 1879-1968
• American Modern Dance practitioner
• 1915 Formed Denishawn School with Ted Shawn
• Choreographed movement sequence in D.W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’
(1916)
University of Bedfordshire 5

6. Early Dance Film
• Doris Humphrey 1895-1958
• American Modern Dance practitioner
• Trained at Denishawn School
• Developed her own technique and choreographic approach
• Choreographed ‘Air for the G String’ (1935)
University of Bedfordshire 6

7. Early Dance Film
• Ted Shawn 1891-1972
• American Modern Dance practitioner
• 1915 Formed Denishawn School with Ruth St Denis
• Created the first all-male works
• Choreographed ‘Kinetic Molpai’ (1935)
University of Bedfordshire 7

8. Film Pioneers
• Film provided artists with the first opportunity to visually represent
time
• All of these early examples are silent films – therefore visual
communication is dominant
• Movement was of central importance as the key method for
representing or communicating meaning
University of Bedfordshire 8

9. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• The Avant-Garde deals with the marginal arts practices that
provided:
• The cultural cutting edge at any given historical moment
• The radical critique of the mainstream culture of the time
• A rejection of the relationship of consumerism to culture
• The Avant-Garde has located much of this experimentation in the
technological revolution at the centre of the 20th Century
• The Avant-Garde art practices that have emerged from the
interrelationship with technology in the 20th Century have a common
emphasis on the role of time in art.
University of Bedfordshire 9

10. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Key Avant-Garde cultural movements
• Abstraction
• Distortion of reality – non-referential
• Surrealism
• Emphasis on sub-conscious – state of dreaming
• Constructivism/ Futurism
• Emphasis on mechanisation – repetition/montage
• Conceptualism
• Emphasis on idea as opposed to function
University of Bedfordshire 10

11. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Len Lye 1901-1980
• New Zealand born avant-garde film-maker
• Used a range of dyes and stencils, scratching the celloid.
• Directed ‘Rainbow Dance’ in 1936
University of Bedfordshire 11

12. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Norman McLaren 1914-1987
• Scottish-born Canadian animator and filmmaker
• Pioneer of animation including drawn-on-film animation, pixilation
• Directed ‘Pas de Deux’ in 1968
University of Bedfordshire 12

13. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Maya Deren 1917-1961
• American avant-garde film-maker and choreographer
• Through Deren, American dance became central to the history of
American avant-garde film
• Directed and Choreographed ‘A Study in Choreography for Camera’
(1945)
University of Bedfordshire 13

14. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Hilary Harris 1929-1999
• American documentary filmmaker
• Pioneers of time-lapse photography
• Directed ‘Nine variations on a dance theme’ in 1966/67
University of Bedfordshire 14

15. Avant-Garde Pioneers
• Yvonne Rainer b.1934
• American dancer, choreographer and film-maker
• Minimalist and post-modern work looking at pedestrian movement
• No Manifesto
• Directed ‘Hand’ in 1966
University of Bedfordshire 15

16. Next Lecture
Teaching week 4
Calendar week 44
Week beginning
Monday 27th October
Lecture 4:
Contemporary
Screendance
Watch the video’s from
Dance Camera West’s
website. (Link available on
BREO).
University of Bedfordshire 16