Cine-dance
A name used in the 1960s for films that made the dancer and the camera equal partners.
Cine-dance followed Maya Deren's lead and was taken up by filmmakers around New York's New American Cinema, among them Shirley Clarke, Hilary Harris and Ed Emshwiller. The camera moved with the dancers, and printing and multiple exposures turned one body into many.
Emshwiller worked often with the choreographer Alwin Nikolais, whose stage works already dissolved dancers into light, colour and shape. On film the two could go further than the stage allowed. Screendance is the broader name the field uses today.
Films to start with
In the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from Thanatopsis to come. Thanatopsis
His brother Mac repeats one gesture, exposed again and again onto the same film, so the camera itself makes the choreography.
Still from Totem to come. Totem
Alwin Nikolais's dance work performed by the Nikolais Dance Company, reshaped with split frames and superimposition.
Nearby
Movements, forms and techniques that share filmmakers or methods with this one.
Screendance
Dance made for the camera, where the cut and the frame are part of the choreography.
Superimposition
Two or more images exposed onto the same frame, so they appear at once, one seen through another.
Video art
Art made with video, from the first portable cameras of the 1960s to the gallery installations and long-form works that followed.