Dancefilm Choreography and the Moving Image [Paperback]

Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Imageexamines the choreographic in cinema - the way choreographic elements inform cinematic operations in dancefilm. It traces the history of the form from some of its earliest manifestations in the silent film era, through the historic avant-garde, musicals and music videos to contemporary experimental short dancefilms. In so doing it also examines some of the most significant collaborations between dancers, choreographers, and filmmakers.
The book also sets out to examine and rethink the parameters of dancefilm and thereby re-conceive the relations between dance and cinema. Dancefilm is understood as a modality that challenges familiar models of cinematic motion through its relation to the body, movement and time, instigating new categories of filmic performance and creating spectatorial experiences that are grounded in the somatic. Drawing on debates in both film theory (in particular ideas of gesture, the close up, and affect) and dance theory (concepts such as radical phrasing, the gestural anacrusis and somatic intelligence) and bringing these two fields into dialogue, the book argues that the combination of dance and film produces cine-choreographic practices that are specific to the dancefilm form. The book thus presents new models of cinematic movement that are both historically informed and thoroughly interdisciplinary.

Preface
About the Companion Website
Introduction
Chapter 1. Modern Movement, Dance, and the Birth of Cinema
Chapter 2. The Close-up: Micro-choreographies
Chapter 3. Gesture-Dance
Chapter 4. Maya Deren: Strategies for Dancefilm
Chapter 5. Anarchic Moves, Experimental Cinema
Chapter 6. The Musical: Moving Into Dance
Chapter 7. Dancefilm as Gestural Exchange
Filmmography
Bibliography

This is a book of tremendous reach and range, shuttling easily up and down the decades, moving nimbly between dance history and film theory, and hopping happily backl(