Sunday 28 July 2013
A Study in Choreography for Camera
Maya Deren (1917-1961)
2:13, b&w, silent
For this groundbreaking avant-garde film, Deren filmed dancer Talley Beatty as he performed a highly condensed dance sequence in a variety of settings, from a forest locale, to a sitting room, and finally to a sculpture-filled courtyard. Deren directed the camera as if it were a dancer, expertly using cuts, varying film speeds, and backwards motion to create a dance that could only exist on film. As Deren wrote in 1965, the dance is "so related to camera and cutting that it cannot be 'performed' as a unit anywhere but in this particular film." This work is considered one of the first major film dances, and has influenced generations of artists and filmmakers since.
Tuesday 23 July 2013
TateShots: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
One of the preeminent choreographers in contemporary dance, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker presents an adaptation of her acclaimed 1982 piece, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich.
TateShots captured the final rehearsals of Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich and spoke with its choreographer, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
First performed in 1982, Fase comprises three duets and one solo dance, each reflecting the shifting rhythms and melodies of the minimalist composition by Steve Reich.
De Keersmaeker discusses the origins of the piece, the process of adapting it for The Tanks at Tate Modern, and how she feels performing it thirty years on.
Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich is at The Tanks at Tate Modern, 18 July – 20 July 2012
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The words of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
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"To be able to dance for a period of over 30 years has been quite special. I think I basically started to dance like a lot of young girls dance. After all those years, I still dance because that is the way I can relate to the world. I'm a choreographer, but I think I'm more of a dancer than a choreographer. And it's nice to dance my own choreographies.
To perform here at Tate Modern is a new phase, in the story of this performance. The way this specific space is, where here the audience is all around and will be moving, I think there is a different kind of dance and performance which is created. 'Fase Four Movements To The Music Of Steve Reich' is a piece, a performance which was made in 1982. It was the very first choreography I made. As the title says, it's four movements to the music of Steve Reich, piano phase, violin phase, and clapping music.
The music of Steve Reich was very inviting at the very beginning state. In the sense that is has a very abstract and logical structure, which is extremely rigorous, nearly mathematical. But at the same time, it allows me to have a certain freedom also, to find a choreographic answer to that. I think there is a very nice flow between things that are simple and things that are complex. The main elements are repetitive patterns, very small figures that are repeated over and over again; and through acceleration and deceleration starts to shift so that you get different relationships in time, until they are again together.
So that's extremely simple, but very refined. That's one of the beautiful things about the body, is that through movement, through dance, you can literally embody the most abstract ideas.
The space has something very raw. It's not the black box of a theatre. It's not the white cube of the museum.
To have live performance, and to have all the intensity of the body, with all it's layers, all the possible emotions that the human body carries, and especially also the social aspect that is emphasized by the relationship with the public. And what is beautiful here also, is that people will be close, they will have a different relationship to detail. I think that's going to transform the performance in a very exciting way. I'm curious to see what's going to happen."
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